A Game of Changes
by ChoicesUponChoices
Summary: All it takes is a moment to send the world we know and all its histories careening off course. Rickard Stark burned alive. Eddard marched from Winterfell, mustering the banners of the North in a march such as the South had never seen. Brandon lived, and Catelyn Tully married a different wolf. Westeros is a very different place when the eldest son of Rickard Stark rules the North.
1. The Brothers

**Author's Note: I do not, as a matter of fact, own the impressively varied contents of A Song of Ice and Fire. Let this disclaimer stand for this story; I am not profiting from the writing of it, or from publishing it. And for all that GRRM might not necessarily _like_ fan-written stories being made from his works - he's inspired quite a lot of writing on my part, most of which hasn't been published, so there's that. Enjoy!**

 **Brandon**

He could feel the bonds about his neck, tightening as he struggled. He could barely breathe, but he thought it wasn't from the cord at his throat. No, it was from the sickening stench of burning flesh, his father's flesh, that lay thick in the air. His sword was just _there_ , _right in front of him_ , if he could just reach it, he could pull his father from the flames-

And then, over that stomach-turning crackling and spitting, he heard his father shout. Not scream, like the madman on the Iron Throne was waiting for, not scream, like Brandon thought and feared his father would do. No, he shouted something, something everyone could understand, something that made his heart pound and tears blur his sight-

"Live!"

Brandon stilled, knowing this was meant for him. It tore his heart to stand there and watch as his father thrashed and his hair and beard erupted into sparks and his flesh melted off his bones but Rickard was his father, and even now Brandon knew he must listen… for all that this was to be his father's last command, no, last word, and it made the son's heart to feel like a stone in his breast. His father screamed then, a long, breaking sound, and the monster of a king only laughed his cold, creaking laugh.

Then his father stopped moving altogether, and Brandon didn't feel it when his knees gave way beneath him, only the impact as they hit the stones of the floor. Blackness spread over his sight and his mind, and all he knew was one thought.

 _I'm so sorry. I failed them all…_

"Your Grace? What should we do with him?"

Aerys seemed to consider the two Starks; one lying insensate, the other unrecognisable bones in melted armour. "He wanted the Tullys to ally with him," he said, looking at the dead man. "Throw his bones in the Blackwater. And his brat in the black cells. There's something in him yet. Mayhaps I'll burn him later, when I've got his brothers. It'll make for a good time, to see them all burn together!"

The guard's face was emotionless as he gestured at his fellows. Three came forward and began the ugly task of pulling the twisted thing that had been a lord from the smoky hall, made difficult as the steel keened and faltered and ashen flesh crumbled. One of them let out a quiet retching noise. In the meantime, the first guard and another had hoisted the unconscious man under his arms and cut the binding about his blue-marred throat.

Aerys merely turned and stomped away, muttering about traitors and flames.

 **Eddard**

"Where is my brother?" Ned snapped at the nearest guard, his face a mask of fury. The man hesitated. "You will tell me, _now_ , or I swear to you, your head will grace the walls of Winterfell!"

"The black cells, m'lord," the guard said, eyes wide with fear. "I'll take you, if it please you."

Ned followed the guard down twisting passages and flights of stairs, well aware of the pattering of the footsteps of his men. The walls grew rougher, the embellishments and carvings fewer and fewer as the strange pair walked further and further. It grew cooler as they descended, and darker, and at last they stood before a metal-girded door the guardsman shied away from.

"It's in there, my lord," he said. "Begging your pardon, but I don't have the keys."

"To the hells with the keys." Ned examined the lock that bound the door shut, and knew he could dispose of it. When he had, an angry swipe of Ice sufficing, he snatched a torch from the nearest bracket and, shoving the door open as wide as it would go, entered the midnight darkness of the black cells. The air here was heavy, musty with the breaths of countless men who had died by orders of kings through the centuries. Ned fancied he could hear their mutterings, mad cries as shadows faded in and out with the flickering of his torch's flames. He shuddered. This was an evil place.

It was only a few rough-hewn columns over that he spotted a figure slumped against one of the stone structures. The man was thin and emaciated as he had never thought to see his large, powerfully-built brother. But it was Brandon, yes, he could see that. Ned felt his heart beating oddly slow as the man he barely recognised turned his head, eyes dull.

"It's not you," he said, voice heavy and as lifeless as his eyes. "I'm tired of these false dreams."

"Brandon," Ned said, trying not to show his horror at what had happened to the brother he remembered. To see his brother, ever fiery, his moods like one of the tempests that ever assailed Storm's End – it drove it home, again, that nothing would ever be the same. He pushed that thought away as he had for too long, for if he thought too hard on it now Ned knew he would never be able to finish this ugly war. "It is me. King's Landing is ours. Get up. Lyanna is still in Dorne. I would find her, and I haven't the time for playing around with you." He felt somewhat guilty at treating his brother – no, he realised, his lord – that way, but it seemed to work. Brandon stumbled upright. Ned went to support him.

"I'm coming with you," Brandon said, though gasping with exertion. "I know I'm not the same as you remember, Ned, but I have to. I am the reason Father died. I would not be the reason Lyanna died as well."

"I knew you would say that," Ned replied, leading Brandon out of the cells. His brother shied from the light, but soon followed, his paces staggering and his dimished weight leaning on the younger of the two. "I found your horse and your armour. You are going to eat, rest a while, and then we ride south."

"I should never have come south to begin with, is that it?" Brandon sighed. "I knew it was foolish. But it was _Lya_ , Ned, our sister. How could I have done anything else? What Rhaegar did… It was our sister."

"No one blames you, Bran," Ned assured, though he found it hard to see how his ever-confident brother had become so doubting. "Least of all Father and Lyanna. You will see. We will find her, she will slap you, most like, and then we will be together again. As we should be. As we belong."

Brandon's lips quirked up into a slow smile, as if unused to the movement.

"I suppose I deserve that slap," he said.


	2. The Sister-Son

**Eddard**

"Bran," Lyanna murmured, her voice as soft as the wind that sometimes whispered in the leaves of the godswood in Winterfell. "Ned. You came."

"We swore we would, both of us," Ned said. "We're your brothers, Lyanna. We will always come to your aid." Lyanna smiled, but it was a strained smile, and Ned felt a chill pass over him as he saw the blackened petals in her hand. Lyanna hated dead roses, had ever since she was a child learning about death for the first time. She would never hold one, not willingly, not if she could help it.

"I knew you would," Lyanna said. "But too late for me, Ned. I was hoping I could stay long enough for you… the maester said I would not, but I did." She shifted, raising a hand much thinner than Ned recalled. The brothers turned in the direction she pointed, and Ned felt that awful chill again when he noticed the rocking-bed, roughly made from boards of Dornish wood like that of the twisted, stumpy trees surrounding the tower.

"Oh, _hells_ ," Brandon whispered, his voice breaking. His face turned murderous. "I'll kill- I wish I was there at the Trident, for _this-_ "

"Don't wake him," Lyanna said tiredly, and her eyes glittered with a fevered light. "I don't think I could rise to soothe him. Promise me you'll look after him. Promise me. You must promise. You _must!_ Whatever happens, promise me he'll be safe!"

"Of course we will," Brandon assured, though his voice was pained. "He's our blood, no matter where he came from. And we've lost too much of our blood, too damn much already. Lya, are you certain-"

"I'm certain, Bran," Lyanna said softly, and Brandon winced. Ned's heart ached with powerlessness. He couldn't do this, couldn't stand here unable to help his little sister, the jewel that sparkled in Winterfell and gladdened the North... and all his learning of honour and strength, all his time away from home with Jon Arryn, and for what? He couldn't save his sister. "I'm frightened, but I know it. The maester told me three weeks ago that I had three days left in me. But I had to see you again, I had to know my little one would be safe… Promise me you'll bring both of us home."

"We promise," Ned said, and his heart wrenched when Lyanna smiled, because it was a smile like farewell. A small smile, pitying, as if she knew what was coming and thought they had the worst of it. And then her hand faltered, and the smile froze on her face, and those dead black petals drifted down from her hand, and Ned knew she was right. And things would indeed never be the same. The war was over. The North had won. But the cost was too high.

Brandon let out a yell of inarticulate rage, falling to his knees. Ned's gaze whipped from Lyanna to his brother, for his brother's shoulders were shaking in the throes of great sobs such as he had never seen, for Brandon had never cried, had scorned the weakness of those who did, even when it was Ned or Benjen. But now Brandon _was_ crying, the sort of crying that hurt just to hear, even if you were already hurting from the same thing.

That was how Howland found them, kneeling together at the foot of a bed of death and roses, the brother who had never wept weeping his guilt.

Because they were too late, and Brandon could only scream that it was his fault.

Howland pulled him outside, and Ned soon realised why. There were birds circling in the air, seeking the carnage of battle that was strewn before the broken tower. He cursed Rhaegar yet again. So many men dead for nothing save his desires. "We'll get Brandon out," he told Howland wearily. "And the boy. And- and Lyanna. The stones will serve for cairns. Pull the tower down. I want there to be no memory of Lyanna's prison and deathbed save the cairns of those who also died for it."

It was hot, harsh work. The sun blazed above them, and Ned knew somehow that he would be feeling its burn for weeks, but somehow the sweat rolling into his eyes stung like justice, as if his pain somehow served as penance for being slow, too slow. The tower was a broken one; even calling it a tower was generous, for it was closer to a large mill's tower, and even then the top half was also falling into ruin. The mortar was dry and crumbling, and the horses easily pulled the stones down. Ned laboured in silence beside his brother by blood and brother of heart, stacking stones about the broken bodies of noble knights and noble warriors. Dead. For nothing. Like Lyanna.

He was glad to ride away from that accursed place. For all that he knew that his pain would not be left behind him, as surely as Lyanna would not be, he would be glad never to think of that horrid tower again. Brandon rode beside him, and Howland behind, the horses of dead men following tamely. He could not think about them, could not grieve his friends, not now. His heart was too full of grief. But Ned knew he had to talk to Brandon, had to plan, had to work.

"Robert will kill him, if he finds out," Ned said eventually, his eyes flickering to the babe Brandon had insisted on carrying himself.

"Are you certain?"

"Yes," Ned admitted, though he felt like he was being disloyal to Robert by saying it. "You would have been sickened to see what Lannister had done with Rhaegar's children. All the red cloaks in the Kingdoms could not hide the blood of a hundred wounds on the girl, and the boy's head was dashed to pulp. And Robert turned away. If he were to find out about Lyanna's child…"

"I could claim him as mine," Brandon said, his face nothing but worry as he looked at the sleeping boy. "Perhaps the Mad King tried to get my support, and sent a girl down. I have a reputation well enough for it. No one would suspect."

Ned frowned, his hands tightening about the reins as he rode in quiet thought. "You are to wed soon, Brandon. After all the aid Hoster Tully gave us, it would be ill-done for you to arrive to wed his daughter with a bastard son under your arm. No. I will claim him. I do not have a highborn maid waiting on me."

"Are you certain want to do that, Ned? I know what you think of what would lead to it. I've had you looking at me with that disapproving look often enough."

Ned shook his head, and looked again at the child. The boy was awake, he noticed suddenly, looking back at him with pale eyes. The babe had dark hair, he saw; that was good. It would be hard to explain how a Stark bastard had Targaryen hair. The boy. Lyanna's. His son now... For all that he could not conceive of how all his friends, all his men would react, Ned decided he could do this. At the very least, he had promised he would look after the boy for Lyanna's sake. He could do this. The boy was a Stark, trueborn or no, and Starks belonged in the North. And he had to protect the boy. Had to keep the secret from the man who had loved Lyanna as strongly as any Stark had, fiercely so. This secret would burden his heart. But he had to protect the boy.

"I'm certain," he told Brandon. "I will name him Jon. That should be suitable for my son, I should think."


	3. The Fosterlings

**Author's Note: I'm surprised at how quickly this story garnered responses, so thank you to everyone that followed or favourited. I don't have a regular writing schedule, so I can't make any ironclad promises about updates, but I will try to keep them coming regularly (I have some scenes pre-written, so we'll see how this goes.) To the guest that asked: I've chosen to follow the R+L=J fan theory in this story, though some of my unpublished ones chose Ashara Dayne's instead. Therefore, Ashara's child or lack thereof won't show up here. As to your other questions: the answers come later** **J**

 **Robert**

Where was Ned?

Robert gestured sharply at whoever the idiot was that had just entered the chamber. He was in no mood to deal with court. He had spent the past fortnight staring out over King's Landing, staring down at the winding road up to Aegon's Hill, waiting for grey-on-white direwolves to come at last. But no direwolves had come, nor had any messengers bearing news of the Starks. They had ridden off nearly a month ago, armed only with the knowledge that Rhaegar had oft left for Dorne, until Robert had caved in his breastplate, of course. How big was Dorne? Not that big, surely.

Robert's hands clenched on the balustrade of the balcony he stood on. He hated this city already. He needed Lyanna back. He had to have her back. The crown they'd put on his head weighed more than metal ought; Lyanna was the only thing that could lighten the load. She would happy, he thought, here where tourneys came every moon. He'd make certain to hold a great one when she was returned to him. She loved tourneys, and he loved her. She was his Queen, now more than ever.

Ned was taking his sweet time. He needed him back here, to help with the snakes that circled around the Iron Throne like vipers waiting to suck his blood and sap his strength. Jon Arryn was a good man, but Ned was his brother. More than Stannis had ever been. And probably more than Brandon Stark had ever been Ned's. They were foster-brothers, and they belonged working together. Just as they belonged in a family bound by blood, and love.

He needed Lyanna back.

 **Eddard**

The journey passed in a blur. Not a drop of wine had passed his lips, but he felt as if he had lost a drinking game with Robert. His hands clenched. _Robert_. How could he tell his friend? How? Robert's love for Lyanna was fierce. For all that Lyanna might have denied its worth, saying he loved the idea of her more than her – he loved Lyanna with the sort of tempestuous passion that had pulled seven kingdoms into war. To tell him now… All the Marches had passed behind them before Ned had begun to consider it. He had passed the high red cliffs in a mire of grief. He hadn't been able to contemplate riding so far with Brandon as lost as him, their heart-wrenching burden behind them. They had stopped at Wyl, and for all Winford Wyll had glared at them, he had hosted them nonetheless – out of pity perhaps – and found Silent Sisters for- for Lya. In the end, Ned and Brandon and Howland had boarded a ship for King's Landing.

The skies were blue, the weather fair, and some part of Ned railed at how unsuitable it was. The day had dawned a beautiful one as King's Landing came into view, as if to mock them with the beauty that had been lost.

"How am I going to do this, Bran?" he asked of his brother. Brandon stood stonefaced as the high spires of the capital came into view.

"I don't know, Ned," said Brandon at last. His jaw tensed. "Gods, I hate this city. It, and all it stands for. All it ever did was break people and families apart. Every inch of it is death."

"We're almost done," Ned said, his voice weary. "I hope Robert does not ask me to stay. I could not stay in this place, not- not with what has happened here, and elsewhere. I want to go home, Brandon… But it will never be the same again, will it?"

"No," Brandon said quietly. "And Robert cannot have you. I have lost my sister. I will not lose my brother as well. You, me, Ben – we are all that is left, Ned. All that is left of the Starks. Arryn had you for years, and it's time for you to come truly home."

They did not speak a word after that as the _Wave Runner_ drew ever closer to the docks. The smell of the city came on the wind like a loathsome miasma of rot and decay, as if it were a warning to all those who came that the capital was a black city. Ned could not imagine staying in this festering place, a wound marring the world. He longed for the clean, sharp air of the Eyrie, or the chill, crisp wind of Winterfell, a home he could barely remember. He had spent so long at Robert's side, so long with Jon Arryn. Brandon was right. The pack had been sorely wounded, and a wolf alone did not long survive.

The roads of King's Landing were a maelstrom of sound; shrieking urchins running through burnt holes in walls and fences, street-vendors shouting their wares as they pushed their carts past places where the fires of war had ravaged the streets. The whispers began to follow them as the smallfolk noticed three riders and a wain returning where so many had left. The silence fell around them like a cloak drawn against the vibrant life, a circle of deathly quiet. A woman saw what the wain bore, whispered it to her neighbour, and soon the streets rang ahead of them with the news. Ned didn't bother – couldn't – to hide the pain on his face. The smallfolk had varying looks on their faces. Some, pitying; others, sympathetic, for those no doubt had lost their own family in this gods-forsaken war. Without a word to them, they cleared the path ahead of the saddened party, bowing their heads. Whatever the smallfolk might think about lords and ladies, they knew the pain of loss just as well.

They passed a flower merchant where the Hook met the Muddy Way.. A woman was standing by the wagon of sweet-smelling flowers, and she stepped in front of their horses. Ned reined his courser to a halt, feeling some small flicker of surprise beyond the smothering grief, and then the woman held out a single, blue bloom-

Ned took the winter rose in silence, nodding his thanks at the woman. He could not have spoken a word of gratitude had he tried; the sight of the bright blue rose had closed his throat. The woman gave him a pitying glance before walking on, and Ned mindlessly kicked his horse forward again. Some small part of him laughed; here was a thing of awful irony, for the brother of a Lord Paramount to be pitied by some common woman. Never in his life had Ned felt such utter disdain for titles and honours and castles. It was always something to be taken for granted, a part of his life he had accepted as fact. He wished for anything but. He would have given up all he had for Lya. He had tried to.

Brandon did not look at the rose as they made their way up the Hook, their horses plodding up the hill. Ned thought he understood why. To look would be to lance the pain again, to feel once again that awful sting. Every sound was muffled again. If not for Howland leading them, Ned was certain they would have never made it past the fish-stalls at the very docks. He and Brandon were as blind as newly born pups.

Howland led them up the Hook, and through gates where guards cast a single look upon their banners before opening the way before them, and through more gates still as the whispers continued, and into the courtyard of a red-walled keep, and Ned raised his heavy head to see Robert standing there, impatient, tired of waiting

"Where is she, Ned?" Robert demanded at once, hardly waiting for Ned to slide numbly from his steed. "You said you wouldn't return without her, else I'd have gone with you as well."

Ned looked up at his friend – his king now – and knew his face was nothing but grief and pain. "I said so," he said. "It is true." And then he stepped aside, and let Robert see who it was they bore with them. He saw Robert's face go white, his eyes fill with disbelief. "We were too late. She lingered in hopes of seeing us all again. When we had come, it was in her last moments, defying the maester's guess."

Robert stepped forward, drawing his fingers down the cold, pale cheek of the girl he had loved. Ned had never thought to see grief on Robert's face, not on the face of his friend, who enjoyed life so much. But there it was, turning the skin sallow, the eyes dull. Ned swallowed the stone in his throat, and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. Now, he knew, was the time to leave the matter of Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen aside, and stand together to face the monstrous grief that threatened to engulf them all.


	4. The Good-Sisters

**Author's Note: Thank you all again for the kind words! G27pazhuka: Jon's appearance is still that of a Stark child. Cancer-Chris: thank you for the encouragement! The Wild Wolf has survived insanity, so changes will come. Enjoy!**

 **Eddard**

They had left King's Landing less than a week from the day they had brought Robert's worst nightmare home. Brandon was itching to get away from the city, as Ned had expected from him, and he himself couldn't bear to see Robert's grief at every turn – it only made his own hurt the harder. The Silent Sisters had come for Lyanna again, and now all that was left of his sister were bones, bones he could not – would not – recognise. Just as the journey from that accursed tower had passed in a haze, Ned could not say how far they were, or how far they had come, save that he knew they would stop sometime soon at Riverrun. Brandon had a betrothal to make good on.

The Riverlands, at least, had weather to mimic their mood. The sunny days of King's Landing were behind them, replaced by a constant, drizzling rain. It soaked through everything, muted the sounds of horses' hooves, coloured the world a distant grey. It was appropriate, Ned thought, for their aggrieved travels. Not even the sandstone walls of Riverrun, rising higher above the tumbling waters of the Trident and the Tumblestone, seemed to break the monotony, the endless march.

They came to Riverrun, were hosted, dried from the days of rain, and still Ned felt as if the world was veiled, somehow, dulling the bright red and blue emblazoned with the Tully fish that coloured Hoster Tully's home. There were sympathetic glances cast his way, but Ned had to worry about other things, for Brandon was busy with his soon-to-be bride, and that meant all the concerns and burdens of keeping an army fed and sheltered became his.

At the very least, Hoster Tully agreed to a quick wedding, perhaps because of the same pity that all the others directed at the bereaved Starks, or still because it was a long time coming and he, too, was impatient. Ned stood for Brandon in the seven-sided sept of Riverrun as a septon droned on and on, saying words of this kind and that and asking for blessings from six different gods. He could see Brandon's own hidden impatience with it all. Only for Catelyn Tully's sake did they wed in a sept. And then with yet more words it meant his brother was married, and off they went to a feast. Ned managed to escape that, at least, claiming an ache was attacking his head. So he returned to the chamber he had been granted and slept for hours, slept through a feast and a bedding and no doubt much else, and awoke ready to journey yet further. As ready as he would ever be.

The army began its rattling journey north the next morn, only now a wain rode in the middle carrying an auburn-haired bride. Ned found he strangely pitied her. He knew well enough the feeling of leaving home, not knowing if he should ever return – but this was different in its own way, for it was for her the time to make a new home. He hoped Brandon noticed and was considerate. Brandon could be charming, and noble, but he could also be a rogue and a dullard when it came to women. For Brandon's sake Ned hoped he was being the former.

The rains had stopped for a while, and their pace grew faster. Ned rode beside the wain for a little while each day. For all that his new good-sister seemed haughty, he thought he glimpsed a touch of appreciation in her gaze. Brandon was ever at the head of the army, riding proudly amidst his banners. No doubt Catelyn was feeling a tad abandoned. So Ned did as he was in the habit of doing – compensating for his brother's lack of sense, at times – and rode for a few hours every day in the middle of the column, telling Catelyn _Stark_ about Winterfell and all the North.

Then came the day when the column stopped. Ned hesitated, and Catelyn saw it. "Go," she told him. "My lord husband seems to be in need of your counsel. I will be fine."

"My lady," Ned said to her, bending his head, and then urged his horse forward with a kick to the sides. He rode through the slowly stopping column, the message to halt making its way down the line, until he came upon the front where Brandon was riding towards an armoured man at the head of a party facing them. Ned caught up to Brandon quickly, eyes sharp. This was not expected, and that never boded well.

"What is the matter?" Brandon demanded, reining his horse to a halt. Ned stopped beside him, looking down at the man in full plate, his chest blazoned with the twin towers of Frey. "Why are we stopped?"

"The Lord of the Crossing was not warned of an army appearing on his doorstep," the Frey man said. "He is most displeased, my lord."

Brandon looked down at the man with a cold look on his face. Ned had the same expression as he examined the weak-chinned man, who had all the non-existent jaw and shifty eyes of his prideful forbear. "Lord Walder may be displeased, if he so wishes, for all that we sent riders ahead to warn of our passage," Brandon replied coolly. "I am not interested in a lengthy delay, ser. I have an army to return to their homes, and a bride to introduce to her new home. Perhaps you know of her? Catelyn Tully, she was until not long ago, Lord Hoster's elder daughter."

Ned hid a smile as the Frey man paled at the name of the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands. Brandon had changed much, the second Stark brother reflected. Where once he would have been like to take up arms against the impudent knight and the Crossing as a whole, instead he used all his cunning. Brandon had come out of the black cells a changed man, but Ned was almost certain it would be for the best. There were plenty of houses that had lost everything after the war, and Ned knew the Starks would be in the thick of it if any revenge was sought.

The Frey man hesitated before speaking again. "Perhaps you would care to speak with Lord Walder, my lord," he said carefully. "I am certain this small matter will be cleared up quickly enough."

Brandon looked displeased. "Very well," he said. "Howland, to you the army. If for some reason we have not returned by sundown, send a few men after us. No doubt Lord Walder will keep us occupied." Another good idea on Brandon's part, Ned decided. It would not be wise to bring Howland Reed anywhere near the Freys. "Ned, come with me."

The Crossing was a grim place, and one Ned would be glad to be rid of quickly, that much he decided without hesitation once they had been shown into the great hall of the south tower. Ahead of them, sitting in a large carven stone chair, the aged Lord of the Crossing looked at them with a gleam in his eyes that Ned misliked. At his side stood his wife – a Rosby, if Ned recalled correctly – and he found himself pitying the woman. Having a husband so much older – and so much viler – could not be a happy thing.

"Lord Walder," Brandon said, stopping in front of the Frey lord's seat. Ned stopped a little behind him. "Your man said you wished to speak with me."

"So it is," the old man agreed. "But where is your lovely bride? I hear she is quite the beauty."

"Lady Catelyn is with my army," Brandon replied. "Perhaps if the men ahead of her had been permitted to cross, you might have met her this day."

"Perhaps," Walder Frey said with a shrug, "Perhaps not. I have my own daughters and granddaughters to look at, beauties all." A few of the girls amassed to the side giggled. Ned found it difficult to wrap his head around the idea that all these men and women were Frey's get. "Straight to the matter, then, my lord Stark. I thought I might offer you an alliance. Of course I am not quite so nice a catch as Hoster Tully, no doubt, but as you have felt, we of the Twins make ourselves known."

Ned turned to see that Brandon was frowning quite openly. His brother seemed to feel his gaze, and turned. It was strange. To say such a thing to Brandon could only be meant as an insult, but Brandon seemed to be thinking. "It's up to you, brother," he said, and Ned saw an uncomfortable look in his elder brother's eyes. "It is your life, to do with as you like." And then, in an undertone, "The truth is, Ned, he would be a powerful ally to have, if even a foul one. Lord Hoster always doubted his allegiances, but a direct alliance would assure us of the loyalty of the Twins as well."

Ned hesitated.

"Have a good look, if you like, young lord," Frey said with a leer that turned Ned's stomach. He frowned, too, then turned to where a mass of maids of every age imaginable – some not maidens at all, he thought, by the way they acted – were gathered at Walder Frey's left. He had the distinct feeling they were there on purpose. Ned found to his complete lack of surprise that he misliked many of them on sight. He was rarely a man to judge solely on appearances, but the elder girls – those his age – they fought and shoved to be at the front like no sisters or half-sisters he had ever seen.

He would _never_ want a wife who had so little regard for her family.

"Stop it, Lythene," he heard a voice say from somewhere in the middle. "You're pushing Morya."

"Stop it," an older voice mimicked, mocking. "You and Morya both, you're babies still. What's a lord going to want with you, Tyta? How old are you, nine?"

"I'm eleven and a half, thank you," the first voice replied primly. "And I don't know that I want a lord wanting anything with me. Father will marry me off to some wrinkled old man the moment I flower, so until then I'm going to stay right here and tell you to stop being a witch to your sisters."

Ned heard Brandon snort.

"There's one for you," his brother told him. "Young, of course, but at least she has fire in her. And some sense of family loyalty."

Ned hesitated. "Which one of you said that?" he asked finally, looking at the girls. There was a slight commotion, and then a small girl (rather viciously) elbowed her way to the front. The girls on either side let out pained cries, but the girl ignored them altogether. She was eleven, true, that much Ned could see. She had a shock of hair so red it hurt to look at, and a very defiant look on her face as she looked back. For all that she curtseyed, Ned could very easily see she didn't think very much of him.

Oddly, he found he preferred that to the rather unnervingly- _affectionate_ looks the elder Frey girls were giving him.

"That'd be me, my lord," the girl said. "I'm Tyta Frey, if it please you."

And when Ned thought about it, he decided this was the best he could hope for, if it had to be done. Brandon looked at him for a long moment, as if seeing whether he was sure. Ned hesitated yet again, feeling the weight of all the years ahead of him weighing on his shoulders. But then, he reasoned, he was oddly fortunate to be getting any choice at all. Not that he had anything against Catelyn Tully, but Ned found himself thinking he preferred choosing his bride – even be it among the mostly weak-chinned descendants of Walder Frey – over one chosen for him.

So he nodded.

Lord Frey raised his eyebrows, until a sickly smile came over his face. "Good girl," he said in the girl's direction. She frowned, looking at Ned as if she didn't quite understand what had happened. Frey coughed. "Which one are you?"

"Tyta," the girl repeated, and Ned got the odd impression this reaffirming of identity was common in the Twins. But then it would be, with a family tree so tangled. "I'm your fourth daughter. The second one from the Blackwood."

"Oh, yes, that's it," Frey said with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. He flicked a hand at the very disappointed-looking group of girls. "Out with you, the lot of you." When they did not seem inclined to move, he glared at them, and then they were gone in a remarkably quick shuffle of slippered feet. "Wife, see to the girl."

The Rosby woman looked at her husband warily before hurrying the girl out of the hall, into one of the many doors that led from it.

Brandon looked displeased, to Ned's experienced eye, but he was hiding it well under a mask of cool politeness. "So. Your fourth daughter, is it?"

"Yes, yes," Frey said, "I think. It is very hard for an old man like me to keep track of his daughters and granddaughters and little bastard girls, you see. I hope you live to be able to complain of the same, my lord Stark. So. What was her name again- yes, yes, little Tyta. Good choice, I suppose, young lord. It's best to get them young. They last longer that way."

Ned froze his face into a mask of careful neutrality before he could lose his temper. It made him feel slightly ill to see the leer on Frey's face, especially considering it seemed to be about the man's eleven-year-old daughter. Frey was easily the most repugnant lord he had had the misfortune to meet. Contemplating the idea of having the foul man for a good-father was unpleasant. If Brandon did not want the Twins, he would never have considered binding himself to anyone born of this place.

"To the matter at hand," Brandon said quite firmly, perhaps seeing Ned's expression. He caught Walder Frey's gaze impassively. "The girl is yet too young."

"Yes, that's true, not blooded yet, either," Frey agreed. "Still, shouldn't be too long, a year or two, mayhaps. I imagine you'd like to take her with you to that frozen castle of yours."

"It would be preferable, yes," Brandon said. "Unless you would care to chance sending her up the kingsroad with an escort of Crossing men, all the way through the Neck. Greywater Watch has always been rather- _independent_ , and dear Howland has been known to be impulsive."

Thinking of Howland, Ned barely restrained a grin. Frey cocked his head. "I suppose that's true enough," the weaselly lord said. He spat. "Keep those bog-devils on a close lead. They killed a man of mine not three days past. I'll not say a word, of course, seeing as our lands are to be so allied, but an old man's patience is not always lasting. Take the girl as you like."

"As our business is concluded," said Brandon, a note of impatience appearing in his tone, "Perhaps you will consent to my army passing by the bridge? It will take time for all of my bannermen to cross, and I am sure there will be sufficient time for your daughter to prepare."

"Not interested in a betrothal feast, eh?" Frey said. Ned tensed. If Brandon offended the man-

" _Lord Frey_ ," said Brandon, his face marred by a scowl that pulled his brows to meet. "I bear with me the bones of my sister and my father, bones I mean to inter with all haste in Winterfell. You will of course forgive my lack of interest in festivities."

"Of course, a grieving man you are," Frey said with a harsh cackle. He gestured at a group of his sons, or whoever they were to him – Ned hardly knew. "Go on. Open her up. Let our dear Lord Stark's army through already. And send someone to hurry the girl along."


	5. The Brides

**Author's Note: I was going to write a response to those of you discussing the Freys' appearance in this story, but** **keedaman** **discerned my thought process in their review. On another note, as much fun as Ashara would be to write, it's hard to reconcile the Eddard-Ashara timeline with R+L=J, and hence Ashara isn't going to be making an appearance in this tale. (And Nellaus – keep an eye out for what Ned's name might become.) Going forward, while I have some small parts of this pre-written, I'm being swamped by a massive amount of coursework and therefore I can't promise updates as soon as many of these have been. That aside – enjoy!**

 **Tyta**

"From what I've heard, it's freezing up there. Have fun with your frozen ice-man," Lythene taunted. "I'm going to go and marry a rich southerner who wears silks and jewels, and I'm going to laugh at you, little half-sister, up North with tree-worshipping fur-swaddled savages. He's not even handsome. He looks grim enough for a funeral."

"As I recall, he has two sets of his family's bones to lay to rest the moment he returns home," Tyta replied, turning her nose up. "Besides, you seemed to like his looks well enough when you knocked Morya over for the chance to present your freckly teats to him. It's not my fault Lord Stark has taste and prefers those of us who haven't spread our legs for half the Crossing. He probably doesn't want your pox anyhow."

Lythene turned a very interesting shade of purple and stomped off. Bethany Rosby gave Tyta an uncertain look. She was timid. Tyta had heard her own mother wasn't. She wondered if it were true. "That was unwise. Lythene holds grudges for a very long time."

"She can hold all the grudges she wants," Tyta said. "I don't imagine I'll be around to suffer for it. Besides, she'll most like forget about it the next time Father presents some little lordling for one of us to wed. Do I really need to bring _everything?_ "

"For all that he is the second son, yes, you will be expected to dress well," her good-mother told her. Good-mother. It felt so strange to say that, and always had. Tyta had been born only a few years after Bethany Rosby had been. "I should not like for your father to hear that you were dressed poorly in the keep of your husband-to-be… although I doubt any of your dresses will be warm enough. Well, I wish you luck, Tyta. You will need it, in the North. They have no love of Southerners there."

"I won't be alone," Tyta said. "Isn't Lord Stark's – the older one's – new bride a Tully? She can't be ready for the North either." This whole thing was a mess. When Lord Walder had ordered all the girls to the hall, they'd known it was something of the sort. Being shoved at every passing lord was something they all grew used to. But it was always the ones like Lythene who left, the ones who shoved their way to the front. Tyta didn't like this, not one bit. What kind of lord wanted a twelve-year-old, anyhow?

"Maybe, maybe not," said Bethany, interrupting Tyta's thoughts and frowning as she folded yet another dress. The room was a bustle of bodies. Tyta could only marvel at how quickly her entire life was being packed away into tightly-closed trunks and chests. It had not yet been an hour since the younger Lord Stark had turned her life upside-down, and all traces of it were already almost gone from this room. "I heard Hoster Tully betrothed his daughter to Brandon Stark before the war. She'll have been expecting this, and getting the furs she'll need. Marya!" One of the many girls running about stopped. She was Tyta's sister- well, something like that, anyway, because Marya's grandmother was Lord Frey's baseborn, and so was Marya. It made Tyta's head hurt. "Fetch me furs, good ones. I don't care whose they are. If anyone protests, ask them if _they_ want to explain to my lord husband why his daughter went North dressed poorly." Marya nodded and scurried off. Tyta would miss Marya. She'd miss Bethany too. Bethany, when she was bold like she was just then, was the nearest thing Tyta had had to a mother, even though Tyta thought of her more as some kind of sister. She'd miss Morya, too, the only sister she had who felt like it.

Tyta was starting to realise she might never again see the Crossing again, nor anyone who lived in the twin towers. It was the most strange feeling, to be so happy and sad at once. Leaving the Crossing meant leaving behind all the cruel girls like Lythene and all the men who watched every girl wondering when to tumble them, even if they were nieces or nephews. But it also meant leaving the only friends she had ever known, and she had no idea what awaited her outside the Crossing. No idea who Eddard Stark of Winterfell even was, save that he had brought war down from the North, and apparently liked her twelve-year-old self over all the buxom Frey girls. The disquiet returned. Was that why Lord Walder liked this idea so much? Because he saw another like him?

Bethany must have noticed the look of sudden terror on her face, because she pulled Tyta into a tight embrace. "You'll be fine, Tyta. Don't listen to Lythene or the others when they gossip. The Starks are an honourable sort, I've heard, better than anyone you might have been sent away to – better than staying here, I should think. I'm more worried for _them_ , taking you in. They certainly don't know what they just agreed to!"

Tyta giggled despite herself. Bethany released her, smiled, and turned back to the task of packing everything up. "Thank you. For- for everything, I mean."

"You're welcome, Tyta."

And that was the last anyone spoke to her. Bethany rushed off to arrange something else, leaving Tyta to sit in silence as the bustling continued around her. Everyone was so intent on their purpose – on her leaving – Tyta felt like a solitary island in a sea of commotion. Marya had come back three times, each time carrying something made of dead animal. She'd smiled at Tyta each time and run away yet again, and Tyta didn't see her again after the third time. She was sitting on one of the chests when the door squeaked open again. She hardly looked, expecting another girl running about, but then out of the corner of her eye she saw someone much, much bigger.

"Hello, Tyta," said Aenys. "Or I suppose this is goodbye, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," Tyta said very carefully. Aenys was the sort you had to tiptoe around. He could be pretending to be nice one second and a monster the next, and he was one of the ones Tyta had decided she wouldn't miss when she left. She wondered why he was here at all. He hadn't ever seemed to know her name, even. Mostly, she supposed, because she was too young for him to start eyeing up.

Almost as if he could tell what she was thinking, Aenys smiled that cold, sneering smirk he always had. "Now, now, Tyta, I'm not so foolish as to upset Father's plans. It would certainly be a burr in Stark's beard if his new little betrothed came to him used. Father sent me to escort you to your dear future husband. He seems to think you might have run."

Tyta bit her tongue to keep from replying. She didn't want to make Aenys mad. And admitting – or even hinting, because he'd know, for certain – that she had considered sneaking away would make him angry. Aenys liked to watch people do things they didn't like. Marya had once told Tyta he'd made Jonny Rivers kiss his sister, just for the fun of it. Tyta didn't know if that was true, but she knew that Aenys scared her. So when Aenys gestured for her to follow him, she did, even if she didn't want to go, even if she didn't know where she was going really.

It hadn't been half a day, yet, and already Tyta found herself sitting in a covered wain, surrounded by all the things that once sat around her little room in the Crossing, jolting and knocking together as the wain crossed holes and ruts in the kingsroad. It was the sea of commotion again, only this time instead of maids and girls and friends she was surrounded by a moving ocean of grim-faced, bearded men. Some stared at her curiously. A few stared at her with disgust, and those she had to work hard to ignore because she didn't know what her place was, and if she ruined it before she even got there Tyta knew she'd never forgive herself. Already the twin towers were falling away behind her, until even when she craned her neck all she could see was the snaking road filled with men and horses. She sat and sat, and swayed with the road and swayed still more, and the sun climbed higher in the sky until it started to come down again, and then Tyta couldn't stand it anymore. She'd never sat so long and so quiet in all her life, and she hated the quiet. Quiet reminded her of days spent kneeling in the stupid sept on cold, hard stone with her sisters and cousins and all the rest of them, praying for stupid things and stupid people not to die. Quiet reminded her of standing with all of them as Lord Walder pushed them all at every lord and landed knight this side of the Dornish Marches. She hated quiet so very much. Quiet was when the other girls' giggles about her hair could be heard and quiet was when the crueller men would point at the girls and leer and quiet was just _horrid_. And even though she was surrounded by noise – by the plodding steps of the army, by the steady, slow clopping of the horses who pulled the wain, by the one wheel that creaked at the same point every time it turned – it was too quiet. And Tyta couldn't sit in the silence so long.

One of the men riding a black-speckled white horse beside her seemed nice enough, by his face, and he hadn't seemed to mind when she'd asked him his name or his horse's before. "Dall," Tyta said hesitantly, and his head turned – for a moment she thought he was as thankful for the breaking of the monotony as she was. "I don't suppose I could sit with wherever Lady Catelyn is, could I?" She gestured feebly. "I'm afraid I'll go mad if I have to sit here in the quiet this whole time."

To her surprise, Dall of Last Hearth let loose a bright laugh. "Not to worry, little lady," he told her. "I'll go and ask for you, though I don't expect anyone will mind it. I know I'm no good for company!" Tyta blinked and stammered – she hadn't meant to offend – but Dall only laughed the harder at her attempts at apology, and spurred Lydda forward until he was lost in the sea of men. It seemed not so long later that he came back. "Lady Catelyn says she'd like the company herself. Her wain is a bit ahead."

"I'll walk," said Tyta very quickly, and hopped off the wain before the man could say another word. She followed Dall forward through the rows of soldiers and men-at-arms until they came to another covered wain, and Dall left her with a cheery goodbye – it seemed odd, coming from a man whose face was as serious as the grave. Tyta climbed onto the wain, and got her first look at Catelyn Stark who had been Catelyn Tully. Yet another sister to keep track of – but Tyta was good at that.

She was very proud, Tyta decided, but that wasn't surprising. After all, her father was the Lord of the Riverlands, and she was beautiful, too. Girls like that had every right to be proud. Tyta envied Catelyn her auburn hair. Her hair was pretty and soft. Tyta's hair had brought her only taunts and teasing.

"It's so very boring," Tyta said tentatively. "How did you manage to get so far by yourself?"

Catelyn's serious face broke into a smile. It was a small one, but it was a smile nonetheless. "To be perfectly honest, I am not at all sure. You are- Tyta?" Tyta nodded. "Well, I am glad not to be by myself any longer, Tyta. I hadn't expected anyone else to join me on this march of the Northmen. I hope we shall be friends."

"I'm glad you're here too," said Tyta, smiling back. She'd worried Lady Catelyn would dislike her, or worse, think her as bad of a Frey as all the others – Tyta had heard what Lord Walder said about Catelyn's lord father before, and she suspected the ill-will went both ways. But it seemed that Catelyn was just as lost in this new world as Tyta felt, adrift in a new place and a new life altogether. And Tyta really was glad. She hoped they would be friends too. She had had precious few of those in the Crossing, and maybe this change wouldn't be so bad after all, if she had a new friend.


	6. The Bastard

**A/N: In my defence, I wasn't kidding when I said I was swamped in coursework. I still am - and my job is as much work at least - but I'm trying to get as much pre-written before the next wave of insanity as possible. I don't have a writing schedule, so apologies in advance for irregularity. As always, thank you to those who leave thoughtful reviews (and suggestions too! Plot bunnies come from nowhere.) Enjoy!**

 **2: slightly revised. Somehow, copying in from Word ended up cutting out quite a few very important paragraphs at the beginning of this chapter (...almost half of it, actually) that make characters' actions less abrupt. Thank you to** **keedaman for commenting on it - I don't know if I would have noticed otherwise. I think I might have been half-asleep when I posted this chapter. Also - autocorrect keeps trying to correct 'Tyta' to Tyra. I'm now bemused by the mental picture of Westerosi Next Top Model. Minor edits made due to some annoying fanon making its way in without me noticing.**

 **Tyta**

It had been two weeks since Tyta had left the Twins. Two weeks in which she had sat making pointless talk with Catelyn - Cat, the other girl insisted after two days of rumbling along on the wain with awkward, stilted conversation - and two weeks in which it rained. And rained. And rained yet more. Tyta had never gone more than a few hours from the Twins, and even then it was sneaking out when no one was watching. This was entirely different. At first it hadn't really sunk in, not fully, but as the wain thundered through muddy ruts and the horses neighed and the sound of thousands of men around them rose with a low rumbling, Tyta began to truly realize what it meant when they passed through the Neck. Here was a place Lord Walder hated more than anything, more than Riverrun, even, and that was saying quite a lot. But here she was, a Frey, on a wain with a girl who'd been born a Tully, and both of them were far away from homes they'd like as not never see again.

She'd never thought to be _sad_ to leave the Twins. She'd hated it so very much there, hated the grey, drab stone and the grey, drab hangings and the grey, drab people, hated Lord Walder and all the other Walders and all the rest of her family too, save some very few. But ahead of her, and around her now, was something somehow worse, and it was worse because she hadn't any idea what it was or what it would be.

Tyta began to realize that she was scared - of making a new home, yes, but more importantly of the fact that she had a betrothed now, and she didn't know him at all. He seemed less foul than many of the men in her family, that was true, but that said little - and Tyta didn't know that she knew people well enough to tell falsehoods for truths. She didn't know him, or what he was like, or what he would expect of her, or what to expect of him. Tyta did not like feeling afraid, or confused, or worried. Sitting there, her bones aching with the constant bumping of the wain as its wheels laboured against the kingsroad, Tyta resolved to find out what she needed to know. If she had to be married to this northern stranger - and she wasn't stupid enough to think that she had any way to get out of it, not this, not now - she would make very sure it was on her terms, too, and not just his.

So when darkness began to draw over the sky that night, and the column of men that stretched farther than she could see began to wind to a halt, Tyta pulled a cloak over her shoulders and drew up the hood before slipping away from the wain. Cate- _Cat_ had promised not to tell anyone she was missing, and no one would notice. Tyta knew from experience that grown men tended to forget about her, and not to notice her walking by at that... well, so long as she kept her hair covered up, anyway. She wandered through the camp as men called to each other and raised their grey tents and black tents and pink tents, the colours mingling together in a riotous mess that concealed her better than any darkness might have.

Tyta listened. Little snippets of conversations were like gold to her now, seeking as she did all the information she could. Here, a soldier muttered something about the Quiet Wolf, there, another commented to his companion that he'd never seen Ned Stark angry. She didn't know if that meant anything save that he hid it well, but it was promising, Tyta decided. She could do without bluster and bravado and stupid things men did to seem more manly. Then she heard something that made her stop in her tracks, hidden behind a pink tent. Peeking around the tent, she saw three short men gathered around a fire, and listened hard.

"-follow until Winterfell," one of them was saying very quietly, running a whetstone over a bronze dagger. "I promised Ned I'd keep Jon safe until we got there, and even if he's here now, I'll keep at it until I have done what I said I would."

"I still can't believe it," said a second, casting a wary glance at the first. "If I didn't have the Reed's son himself sitting here telling me _Ned Stark_ has a son, I'd never believe it."

"Believe it," said the third, sounding vaguely amused. "I've seen the babe myself. Howland sent me to find a girl to nurse the boy back in King's Landing."

"Aye, so I did," said the first. Tyta assumed he was Howland, then, and tried not to let herself be distracted by what they were saying, because she needed to know all of it, and miss none. Not even if this would change everything. "I didn't mean for you to take it as an excuse to go visiting every brothel in that cesspit of a city, Adrik. Jeyne is a good girl, but I prefer not to think of where you found her. Where is the girl, anyway? I haven't seen her all day."

"Tent next to where I set yours, west edge today," said the third man. "You said to keep her close, and the girl looked exhausted. I don't blame her, the boy's a squaller and no mistake."

Tyta decided she had heard enough. She let her feet take her west, slipping through between tents and picking her way across discarded tack and saddlebags, her head reeling. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to find out, but it certainly wasn't this, not that the man she was expected to marry had a son already, a bastard. Her heart was pounding furiously, her fear back again. What if he was like her family after all? She didn't think she could bear it, living like Bethany Rosby. She had to find a way to make certain, be certain-

Her feet stopped without her telling them to when her ears caught the wailing of a baby. She wasn't far from where she'd heard Howland - whoever he was - and his two men muttering. There couldn't be that many babies in this camp of men-at-war, could there? Tyta hesitated, and tried to still her shaking hands. Then she clenched her teeth and walked forward, pulling up the flap of a grey tent. There was a girl there, not much older than her she didn't think, holding a crying, swaddled thing in her arms. Tyta noticed the girl looked so very tired, her face drawn and bags of blue under her eyes. The girl seemed to notice something, and turned, and gasped.

"I'm sorry- I wasn't supposed to-" she was stammering. "I'll bring him somewhere else, my lady, I didn't mean to-"

"You're- Jeyne?" said Tyta quietly, and the other girl fell silent, and nodded. Tyta hesitated yet again. She didn't... she wasn't sure what to do. But then the baby started crying again, and Jeyne looked so very tired- "Give- give him here." Jeyne gaped at her, and Tyta wasn't sure whether she ought to take it back, but she never took things back, she wasn't a liar- "I mean it. I'll watch him for a little while so you can sleep."

Jeyne looked as hesitant as Tyta felt, but she gave her the swaddled babe and slipped away, leaving Tyta to stare at the boy. He'd stopped crying once again, and now he was just lying there in silence. She heard a sudden intake of breath behind her, and turned to see Lord Eddard standing at the entrance flap of the tent with a look of surprise on his face. The shadow of the tentpole fell strangely on his face, cutting it into light and dark in a way that made Tyta feel some vague kind of unease.

"I can't nurse him, of course," she said, keeping her voice studiously matter-of-fact, and bounced the baby a little. Her heart was thrumming again, so loud she could hear nothing but a harsh rushing in her ears. "But it's good practice, and he's quiet, so I don't mind. Not to mention that girl your friend found to nurse him needs the rest. He's a strong one, and no mistake." The boy gurgled, no doubt catching sight of his father. Tyta wondered if she'd just lied. She wasn't sure what she felt, or what she thought, but she had to keep going. She had to make sure this wasn't going to end in disaster. "Jon is his name, isn't it?" He nodded. "It's a good name."

"You took the news better than I had hoped," he said very warily, watching her with the sort of gaze she associated with skittish animals that might run away in a heartbeat. Somehow that made her feel ever-so-slightly better. Maybe because it was so different from the unabashed cruelty she'd seen in the Twins, maybe because it was oddly flattering to know he cared at least a little what she thought.

Tyta gave a little shrug of her shoulders, her movement limited by the gurgling baby. "There's lots of bastards in the Towers, and those of them who were raised right are better men than most of the trueborn Freys. I didn't even know you existed before you came by with an army to fight a war, and I doubt you knew my name until Lord Walder decided he wanted a wolf for a son just to show up Hoster Tully. It's stupid enough to blame the babe for being born, and anyway, I can hardly say you were unfaithful. It's your business where you got him, but it's my business to look after him." She hoped he couldn't tell she was trying to convince herself as much as him.

"An odd thing to hear from someone of the South," said Lord Eddard. "I know how southerners treat their bastards, and northerners too, though not so badly, I should think."

"That's true," Tyta agreed. The baby managed to wrap his tiny fingers around one of her braids, and she had to spare a moment to disentangle the red locks from the boy's fingers. Gods, but he had a good grip for a newborn. She'd held babies before – there were always babies in the Twins – but this one seemed very fond of pulling her hair. "But I'm not in the South anymore, am I? Besides, some of the best people I ever knew were bastards. My best friend in the Crossing – her name was Marya – was my father's bastard, and so was her grandmother. And Martyn was the only man in the Crossing who wasn't completely foul. So far as I can tell, the only difference between a bastard and a trueborn child is whether or not a septon said some fancy words over their parents. I only want to know – is his mother alive?"

He wasn't very good at hiding his feelings, this future husband of hers. Growing up in the Twins, Tyta had learned the hard way to watch for those little creases above the nose and the slight twitch of brows pulling together. Eddard Stark hadn't learned that. His face was like a mirror of whatever he was feeling. And something dark was on it now, something that worried Tyta more than even Lord Walder's darkest moods had, because Lord Walder in the end was the Lord of the Crossing, and Eddard Stark was of Winterfell, which meant something even bigger.

When he spoke, his voice was careful. That was good, she decided. He at least knew that much. Whatever mess she'd gotten herself landed in, he was going to have to learn how to hide it, and fast. Tyta was twelve, and she'd call the Stranger her sister before she ended up a widow before twenty. "No. No, she is not. Why do you ask?"

"He'll want to know," said Tyta. "So maybe he won't realise I'm not his mother for a while. Martyn didn't know my mother wasn't his, either, not until the day Emmon called him a bastard when he was seven. But he – Jon I mean – he'll know one day, and he'll ask you, or he'll ask me, and he deserves to know that much at least." She raised her eyes from the baby chewing on a trailing ribbon from her braid, and stared right at the silent man. "And I deserve to know why you're not telling me all the truth. You don't trust me, and I don't blame you. I wouldn't trust me. But I won't sit quiet for years without knowing it. Whatever you're hiding can hurt me just as much as you, and it's not fair to me if I don't know it. So before the day Jon asks me who his mother was, I expect you to have told me. It isn't fair otherwise. Not to you, or me, or Jon."

"You ask much," said the younger Lord Stark, his voice very strained now. His hands had clenched into fists, Tyta noticed, and his neck was tensed. That did not say anything good.

"And you didn't, when you and your brother came in with an army and took me with you?" said Tyta. He stared. Maybe the Northern girls he was used to didn't speak their minds. She didn't care anymore, and she forced her terror away. This was going to be _her_ life for however long the Seven gave her and she would _not_ spend it like Bethany Rosby, tiptoeing around her husband in fear. She would not. She'd rather die. "I'm used to men playing their stupid power games over my head, but I won't accept it, not from you. All I hear from anyone in this field of tents is how good and _honourable_ you are, but what kind of good and honourable man hides something deadly from his wife? I'll be your greatest ally, _my lord_ , or I won't be anything at all. I _won't_ be a silly air-headed plaything for you to hang off your arm and parade about like a toy. I _won't_. I don't care what you say. I _won't_. You picked someone with spirit, well, now you have to deal with your own choices. You could have picked any of my sisters for some stupid little southern girl to play with and give you a houseful of brown-haired brats. You didn't, so you've no right to treat me like that. No right!"

This young lord who she didn't even know how to address was silent for a long moment, the silence broken only by the muffled sounds of the camp around them. A horse neighed somewhere nearby, and a man let out a torrent of filthy curses. "Not today," said Eddard Stark. He gave Jon one last glance, his face a mask of something that might have pain- or _fear_. "But before he asks. I will. I swear. But- only if it is safe." He ducked out of the tent without another word.

Tyta realised she was trembling so hard she was surprised she hadn't dropped Jon. She sank onto the fur-strewn cot, numbly wondering if the crannogman who slept on it had expected this, and maybe that was why he'd given up his tent so quickly. Her legs were shaky. He hadn't moved a pace towards her, hadn't raised his hand, but Tyta suddenly became aware that she'd never felt so afraid in her life. Sitting there, holding some other woman's child, she could only hope she hadn't _ruined_ everything before it began.

Something black and dark seemed to have settled over the world as she saw that frightened expression again, her mind whirling. What could scare a young lordling so much? Just what had she gotten herself into?


	7. The Wolves

**Author's Note: throwing it out there since it may not have been registered fully - the previous chapter has been severely edited because I hadn't noticed half of it got cut out somehow when I was copying it in. My fault, sorry! Thank you to reviewers whose reviews made me do a double-take. That aside, the Starks are home, but home may not be what they think it is. Enjoy!**

 **Brandon**

He had never been quite so happy to see the walls of Winterfell growing larger in the distance, the keep a dark monolith rising beside the tangled trees of the wolfswood. He hardly registered his hand's movement until he felt his own fingers at his throat. The bruises that had coloured his neck black and blue had faded long ago, but it seemed to Brandon that the touch of his hand made them flare up again. His happiness soured. For a moment, he had almost forgotten the horrors in the Red Keep and all the grief that followed.

For a moment, he had expected to see his father riding out to welcome him, as Rickard Stark had always done. Instead it was his littlest brother, and Brandon knew at once that however quiet Benjen had been the timid youngest Stark was gone forever. The man riding towards him now was solemn and stern, and Brandon knew the mask of calm for what it was because he wore it himself.

"My lord," said Benjen, when the small party of horsemen had reached the head of the army. Brandon's heart clenched. There was a title he had always wished for, always aspired to. Now, with bitter hindsight, he cursed the foolish boy he had been, the boy who never quite realised that the lordship of the North meant that his father was gone. "Winterfell is yours."

Brandon's mouth was dry, and he had to swallow a stone in his throat before speaking. He couldn't deal with the niceties and courtesies. Not now. They were three, the brothers, and all that was left. "Ben," he said, and his voice echoed in the still air. Even the wind, always so bitting, was silent. "Ben, I am so very sorry." Sorry for Benjen, who had always been closest to Lyanna, sorry for Brandon's foolhardy rush south, sorry for all the madness that had descended on Westeros.

The look Benjen gave him was a strange cross of pity and a commiserating grief. "I know. I only wish you had listened to Father all those times he told you to think twice before riding off."

Brandon winced, and though he knew Benjen didn't mean it as a barb, it hurt nonetheless. "I know, too. And I promise I will now."

But Benjen only looked at him in silence for a long moment before turning his horse back towards Winterfell, and Brandon did not see the quiet doubt that coloured his brother's face as they moved onwards.

 **Eddard**

It had been so long since he had been here. He had been sent off to the Eyrie as a boy, and it was the Eyrie Ned knew like the back of his hand, not Winterfell. He was accustomed to high towers and spiralling stairs, narrow hallways that twisted up to the sky with high-vaulted ceilings. But Winterfell sprawled across the ground instead of up into the air, and its towers were squat and solid to the Eyrie's high-flung needles.

In the end, he used the pretense of learning his way around the keep again for some time alone, without Benjen looking so quiet and sad it hurt Ned's heart, without the sidelong glances from all the folk of Winterfell who had not seen him in years save for his brief appearance to muster the banners, without Brandon who for all his promises did not seem to have learned how to settle down, and most of all without Tyta Frey, who made Ned worry more than anyone else.

The confrontation in the tent had been weeks ago, but Ned had not spoken a word to Tyta since then. He did not know what to say and did not know how to say it without plunging the Seven Kingdoms back into war. Robert had been crowned king, and Cersei Lannister was now his bride, but Ned knew his friend, and Ned knew that if Robert ever heard whispers that Eddard Stark's son Jon Snow was in fact Rhaegar's by Lyanna, the Kingdoms would bleed again.

He did not want to tell her. Not now, not in a year, nor ever. But Ned had promised to tell her the truth, and when he looked back and cursed himself for it he couldn't shake the feeling that it was nothing but what he owed the girl. The secret could endanger her as well, he told himself, and it was impossible to guard oneself from things one did not know. It was only fair she know the terrible truth. But for all Ned's attempts to settle his fears, still he wandered the corridors of Winterfell in silence. The days passed slowly. He visited Jon, and held him as he thought long and hard. He visited the godswood, a part of him glad to be here at last, where there was a weirwood and a proper godswood, and knelt before the white trunk still thinking. He visited his good-sister, too, for his suspicions on their way up the kingsroad had been proven right, and for all Brandon's improved cunning he still did not seem to know how to act around women, even his wife, and spent all hours of the day apart from her.

It was during a meal with both Catelyn and Brandon that Ned's internal arguments drew to a close. He had done his best to entertain his brother's new wife, understanding how different Winterfell was from another keep perhaps better than he might have had he not been fostered away, but he was no fool. Ned could see the quiet discontent in her face, and all his loyalty to his elder brother could not have stopped him from thinking it well merited. When Brandon had seated himself, Ned realised it must have been the first time his brother had spent more than a passing moment during the day with Catelyn in the fortnight since they had come to Winterfell.

Catelyn, Ned saw, had reached the end of her patience. He did not stay for the argument he could see brewing, and left before he could be drawn into it. That, he thought, would only make it worse; Brandon would call on him to defend him and be angered when Ned could not excuse his failings, and Catelyn would no doubt be betrayed that Ned could not openly condemn his brother. Ned, caught between his lord and his lord's wife, was suddenly struck by how terribly strained his brother's marriage was.

With a quiet certainty, Ned realised that strain was nothing to what he would suffer, should he not tell Tyta what he had promised to tell her.

For all his fear and worry, for all his concern about Robert's wrath and Jon's fate, Ned could not bring himself to condemn a marriage he had yet to enter to that awful simmering resentment. Ned could remember his father and his mother from before he was sent away to the Eyrie, could remember the quiet support each gave the other and the contentment they shared, so harshly different from what Brandon and Catelyn now had between them. Ned was still very much so fearful of what consequences telling Tyta the truth might bring, but in that moment, standing outside a door that hardly muffled the sounds of angry voices, he knew with certainty that he _would_ tell Tyta his secret.

 **Benjen**

Benjen made his decision in a sudden moment of clarity after a month of indecisiveness.

Brandon would call him stupid, or worse, he knew, and Ned would look at him as if he had taken something precious from him, and that would be all the worse. He had made his decision, though, and now he would act on it. He had chosen this path for a reason, and many more, and there was nothing his brothers could do to change his mind.

A small part of him was witless with terror. Benjen had never left Winterfell for any length of time, and until Ned had come for the banners and left with them had never been without his family about him. The war had hurt Benjen more than he could explain for a man who had not seen battle in it. Benjen missed his father and his sister terribly. Rickard Stark had been Benjen's idol, a strong and noble lord Benjen had grown up to see as a paragon of all that was good. Lyanna was the closest to him of all his siblings, for Brandon was always riding or chasing girls or ignoring his youngest siblings, and Ned had spent more time with Robert Baratheon than with his own blood brother. And now they were both gone. _Dark wings, dark words_. Benjen found his throat catching on a dry chuckle. For all the hurt black had brought him, now he thought to live in it? The gods had a sense of humour, it seemed.

He couldn't stay in Winterfell. It was the home of his childhood, the walls a comforting presence as warm as the heat of the waters that flowed in springs beneath them, but the war had ripped that security away like a cold, biting wind off the hills. He heard Lya's laughter echo around every corner, saw his father peering over parchment at every table. The ancient stone had caught their shades and taunted him with every step he took, and Benjen could take it no longer.

He turned a corner, and saw Ned standing in the middle of the corridor, his eyes fixed on a door. From that door Benjen heard muffled shouts, and he winced. It had been two weeks of constant uproar from his eldest brother and his good-sister, two weeks of spontaneous shouting and angry glares, and that did not help Benjen at all. Brandon had become better at discerning evil motive – the war had taught him how to see with the eyes of a jaded, suspicious lord – but he had learned nothing, it seemed, of propriety and kindness. Benjen knew it hurt Ned as much as it hurt him to see the arguing. And it _did_ hurt, with a chilling bite to remind Benjen that the happy family he knew was gone forever.

"Ned," he called quietly, and his brother turned and came towards him. "Ned, I've made my decision." He had only spoken of his dark thoughts to Ned, of all those in Winterfell. He might not have been the closest of Benjen's family, but he was the only one left who Benjen had thought to trust. Now Ned's eyes were sad and his face dark.

"I suppose there is no hope in convincing you otherwise," said the elder of the two, and Benjen shook his head. "You know that Brandon will not be pleased."

"Of course not," Benjen replied. He cast an uncertain glance at the door. "If, that is, he spares a moment from his arguing to be displeased. How can he be so cruel to her, Ned? He ignores her all day and seems so surprised when she feels alone." He shook his head. "No, I think I know the answer to that. I cannot stay, Ned, I cannot be here."

"I do not understand," Ned said. "But it is your choice, Benjen, and I have no right to tell you what to decide. I wish it were otherwise, but I trust your judgement. If this is what you believe is best for you, then I can only hope you are right."

Benjen caught his brother's eye. "I am. I am more certain of it than I have ever been of anything. I only want you to promise me one thing, Ned. Promise me you will not- will not become like Brandon. There is enough anger between Starks now. We cannot afford any more. I have no idea what it is that you are hiding, but if you must hide it even from your family you must at least tell your wife."

"I know," said Ned, but his voice was strained. "I have known that for a fortnight. But I must find the right moment. I cannot afford to let the wrong person hear it, Ben. If they do, it will ruin us, worse than the war and then some." He shook his head. "But that is my concern. You have a decision to tell our brother about. I only hope Brandon is too tired from his foolery to protest overmuch. Good luck, Benjen."

Benjen watched his brother walk down the hall until he had passed around a corner and sighed before turning towards the now ominously-silent door. He drew in a long, steady breath and took a step forward. This, he knew, would be unpleasant. But he had to do it. He had to get away from Winterfell. And if he had to go somewhere, the Wall was better than endless wandering. Even Brandon would have to see that much.

He hoped.


	8. The Fish and the Tower

**Author's note: I'm almost surprised at myself for managing another chapter so soon. Feedback is, as always, appreciated. Enjoy!**

 **Tyta**

Tyta had decided she was relatively lucky. She hadn't thought to think anything of the sort, succumbing to a fit of feeling sorry for herself that had lasted weeks, but it was hard to pity yourself when you were watching (from a safe distance) as your future good-siblings argued their marriage into an early grave. _At least I don't have to marry someone like Brandon._ It was a terrible sort of thing to think, she knew that – but how could she _not_? He was better than Lord Walder and most of the men in her family, yes, but that wasn't setting a particularly high standard for anyone, and just because he didn't call Cat awful names or hit her didn't make him a good husband.

"Are they arguing?" said a tired, weary-looking man she had been introduced to on her first day in Winterfell, stopping by the sunny room Tyta spent much of her time in. It was the brightest room she had found yet, and very warm. The only problem was it was right beside Lord Stark's solar, and that meant she heard all the shouting come through the windows. Tyta nodded, and made a helpless gesture with her hands when he sighed. "Gods, this is terrible. I never thought to see the lord of Winterfell arguing with his lady wife." He shook his head. "Well, thank you nonetheless."

"Good luck," Tyta said. Vymar Poole sighed again and left to go next door, no doubt to try to get a moment of Brandon's time to go over budgets. Poor Vymar had been trying to get Brandon to read the latest harvest reports for a week. She frowned and turned back to the book she had been reading. Winterfell might be in the middle of the frozen North, like Lythene had sneered at her, but there were so _many_ books. The Crossing had little by way of books, save The Seven-Pointed Star, but here there were histories and legends and so many scrolls and records it made her almost dizzy. Tyta hadn't known there was so much history to write about. Or that it could be so very interesting. The maester had looked very surprised the first few days she had taken to visiting his tower, but now he would greet her with a new tome of annals or tales every time she came.

The door opened again, and Tyta had to make herself look up from the fading, yellowed pages of a fanciful story about something called the Arm and strange little creatures called the Children, who apparently had green hair. When she did raise her eyes, she bit her tongue to keep from drawing in a surprised breath. She'd noticed how he avoided her, how he took great pains to keep himself busy away from her. He was the last person she had expected to see now. "Lord Eddard?"

"Lady Tyta," said Lord Eddard, and his face was a perfect mask of nothingness. "Have you time to listen to a sad tale of secrets?"

That, thought Tyta, was a very strange way of putting it, and not particularly reassuring. She laid a strip of cloth between the pages of the book in front of her, and closed it with a muted _thump_. Taking that as the answer it was meant to be, Lord Eddard very carefully closed the door behind him and sat down opposite her. Tyta waited in silence. She'd given him all the words she had. It was his turn now.

He blew out a long breath that spoke to such exhaustion that Tyta was a little worried. The strain of whatever secrets he hid – and his elder brother's tumultuous marriage – could not be healthy. She'd noticed he was dragged into the arguments more often than not. "I… I cannot play around the heart of the matter. Know this to be the truth, then, and hold it in silence. If _anyone_ hears a word of it, we will all die." His hands were clenched together, the skin over his knuckles white with tension. "Do you know how the Rebellion started?"

"Prince Rhaegar kidnapped your- your sister, I think it was?" said Tyta, and frowned when Lord Eddard nodded very slowly. "What of it?"

"Rhaegar did more than that," said Lord Eddard. "He spirited her away to Dorne and hid her away in a tower. In the meantime, Robert and I threw down him and his family... Tywin Lannister had Rhaegar's children slaughtered and Robert… his hatred changed him. He loved Lyanna, and for that his hatred of Rhaegar was such that it covered all the other Targaryens, babes or women, it matters not to him now. He did not care when the Targaryen children were shown to us murdered."

Tyta feld a forboding feeling tickling at her, a strange awareness of something she knew she should know, like a hare that sensed the presence of a fox. She didn't understand why Lord Eddard was talking about the new King's hatred for dragons and dead Targaryen babies, not when he was supposed to be telling her a secret about who Jon's- " _Fuck_."

He threw her a startled look, and Tyta couldn't help the dull red flush she could feel creeping up her neck and flaming on her cheeks. She hadn't meant to say that aloud, Seven knew ladies weren't supposed to know such words let alone say them, but suddenly the forboding feeling had become a terrible, terrible fear and all the hot embarassment in the world couldn't stop the cold clutching at her insides. Lord Eddard hesitated. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Tyta. "Yes, I do. Gods." She laced her fingers together, looking anywhere but at the man sitting across the table. They must make a pretty picture, some strange part of her thought, a seemingly peaceful pair in the sunlight. The picture was a lie. The sun was no comfort. "So you claimed him because- yes, I suppose Lord Brandon could not. Cat would have hated him even m-" Again with it. Her tongue seemed to be loose and wagging today, and Tyta winced a little, cursing herself. What was she thinking? Letting out such thoughts around the lord in question's younger brother?

"Don't," said Lord Eddard abruptly, rather startling Tyta. She met his gaze uncertainly, wondering what he meant. "If you will say something, say it. I could not live as Brandon is, and I hope you do not wish for that either. He treats Catelyn terribly, and everyone in Winterfell knows it. If he angers himself over being told the truth, I will straighten his head for him, rest assured of that. I do not know what the future holds, Lady Tyta, but if nothing else I hope we shall be friends one day."

Tyta considered that for a long minute, staring at her fingers as she tried to mull that thought over. She was so damned tired of this elaborate dance of niceties and politeness and awkwardness. Eventually, she spoke up in a quiet voice. "Then it's time to start calling me just Tyta, isn't it?"

The part of her fearing she'd gone too far _again_ was reassured at least a little when she got a startled look and the beginnings of a smile. "And then you must call me Ned. I cannot remember the last time anyone but you called me 'Lord Eddard' in any way but in jest."

Yes, Tyta thought absently, that was true enough. She'd noticed even the smallfolk of Winterfell didn't seem to call him that. They'd call him 'my lord' or 'm'lord', but never 'Lord Eddard.' She'd seen some few call him 'Lord Ned', which had sounded silly every time she heard it, but not nearly as silly as the strange fur-clad men that had come through Winterfell who had strange names for everyone, calling Brandon 'the Brandon' and nicknaming everyone else they saw. She'd hardly known how to respond when their leader, a big man that called himself a bucket, had dubbed her Firetop. It wasn't so different from all the terrible nicknames Lythene and the others had given her, but somehow it wasn't at all so mean. But that was beside the point. She hesitated a moment before deciding it was safe to smile a little. "I will."

 **Catelyn**

She was terribly jealous. It was a horrible thing, made worse because she had to admit how little she had in order to envy what others had more of. Cat hated this place, hated the cold drafts that blew through the slightest cracks, hated the fact that the nearest sept was in White Harbour, hated all of it. She hated the mockery her life had become. It was her own fault, she thought. How many times had she knelt in the sept at Riverrun as a little girl, praying she'd marry a handsome lord and come home to his big castle? Now that she had, the dreams tasted like ash. Brandon Stark was handsome and powerful, and Winterfell a great castle, but Cat wished for none of it. She'd much rather a little less of both and a little more kindness and love.

Like Tyta had. She'd felt awfully guilty for feeling a sneaking pleasure when Tyta and Ned weren't speaking, a little bit mollified that at least she wasn't the only one feeling the strain of an arranged marriage. But a week ago that had all stopped, and as happy as she was that Tyta could smile at Ned and have him smile back instead of muttering some pleasantry and leaving, Cat was jealous. Tyta might have been betrothed to the second Stark son, the son without a lordship to inherit, but Ned was a good man, a caring one. That much Cat had learned on the road north, when her days were spent sitting endlessly on a rumbling wheelhouse, talking either to Tyta or the younger wolf that would ride at her side to break the monotony of the day before Tyta had joined them. Brandon had ridden at the head of the army the whole way, ignoring her. Cat wasn't stupid. She'd seen the camp followers fawning over her hew husband. It turned her stomach. At first she thought she wasn't enough, that it was her fault, but she had her pride still.

It was Brandon's fault. He treated her like a child treated a plaything, tossing it around to suit their whims for a while until they grew bored and passed on to something else. Their arguments had become only more uproarious, instead of quieting as Cat knew everyone that saw them wished they would. Some part of her wondered if she wasn't just supposed to stop and accept things as they were. She had some vague impression that it was expected that a wife obey her husband. But she couldn't, not like this. Was it too much to ask for that husband to treat his wife like a being worthy of respect? Was it too much to wish for, if not love, then at least a quiet friendship?

Cat didn't know what to do. In all the lessons she'd had ever had on all those things that wives were meant to do, this had never figured into it. She'd learned to sew and embroider, to run a household and its servants, but she'd never been taught what to do if the lord of the house was an inconsiderate man who ignored her. She doubted Brandon even realised what he was doing, or how he was treating her. She doubted Brandon realised there was another way to treat a woman save the occasional night he came to her rooms. That she did not begrudge him. That was something she'd expected, something lords expected of their ladies and the other way around. This, though…

She raised her eyes from the embroidery hoop she was examining when the sounds of quiet conversation reached her ears. Tyta was talking to Ned about something to do with the book in her hands, and Ned seemed to know what she meant. Cat didn't know what they were talking about, but her heart ached to see that even in the discussion of books they seemed to be happy to hear each other talk. Why couldn't she have that?

Cat resolved to ask Tyta what she'd done to get Ned to be agreeable. It smarted to have to ask someone younger than her, so much younger, but she had no choice anymore. Maybe Tyta wouldn't mind asking Ned for his advice, too. Cat didn't want to ask him outright. It was embarassing to be so lost. She had tried so very hard to be the distinguished lady she thought was expected of her, but all it seemed to have gotten her was an angry husband and her own discontent.

She let her eyes droop back to the red and blue embroidery, pushing the needle through the fabric once again.


	9. The Wild Wolf

**Author's Note: school packs a serious punch. I'm trying to write, I swear. If there are random typos in this chapter, please let me know - this is the first one I've typed on an iPad, and autocorrect is my worst enemy. Enjoy!**

 **Tyta**

The first winter snowstorm came suddenly. Tyta vaguely remembered the last winter, but when she woke to a glaring white emptiness covering everything in sight, the pale remembrance of a thin blanket of snow seemed like a farce. There'd been enough snow at The Crossing to roll into balls to throw at Lythene, and to pack into walls with frozen crenellations and snowy guards with pebbles for eyes, but here the snow wasn't for playing. It was a heavy layer that covered everything, muffling every noise. Down below, she saw a guard trying to clear the ramparts, the cloud of his frozen breath rising like a kettle's steam.

It was so very quiet. There weren't any birds chirping, the usual murmur of wagons and horses in the winter town silent. But in the distance, Tyta could see a dark smudge on the kingsroad, a dark smudge that was all those who lived nearby coming for the safety of the town. Ned had told her that the empty buildings of the winter town would be filled as soon as the snows came, crammed together in hopes of sharing the warmth. Tyta decided she would go down and help them settle in.

She had half-turned away from the window when a guard leapt out of a window on the inside of the inner wall. Tyta's head snapped back, her eyes wide, but then his head surfaced from the snow he had vanished into. Suddenly, she realized what he was doing: the doors of Winterfell opened below the snow. That explains the doors that open into the air. She'd wondered at the heavy doors scattered around the higher floors of the keep, thick and wooden and all barred shut from the outside. The guard had managed to make it to one of them and was hauling the bar off the door. Immediately, it swung open, and Tyta saw another four fur-covered men emerge, no doubt to help open up all the doors surrounding.

What a strange world the North was. Looking at the blanket of snow, slowly being broken as windows and doors were shaken open and snow was gradually cleared from walkways and ramparts, Tyta almost fancied herself somewhere far, far away, on the island of Ib or even the white surface of the moon. But inside it was warm, despite the biting cold of the wind blowing by, and for that Tyta was thankful. It was very pretty to look at, but she had heard the guards muttering as light snows fell and frosts deepened. Murmurs of men found frozen blue and hard, starvation in the winter town, ears and fingers and noses and toes turned black and rotting.

There was a reason Northmen had a reputation. Tyta had seen it in the men that had come to the Crossing. Men under a grey direwolf or a giant in chains or a moose's head, some with a merman at their head and some with a winter star, but all among them had fingers missing, or a shuffling pace she was told came because they'd lost their toes. Some of the guards that rode beside her had no ears or noses like an animal had bitten the ends off. Lythene had taunted her about living with the monsters of the North, man-eating monsters that attacked each other for food when they starved. Tyta smiled a little. Lythene was stupid and afraid of everything. Tyta wasn't afraid. Even if the hole in the side of Dall's head where his ear should have been made her stomach turn.

Tyta spent much of the day helping the families that were streaming into the winter town. She couldn't carry much, but she could hear their teeth chattering from five paces and if she carried a few baskets, well, that was a few baskets less for them. No one paid her much mind, hurrying to and fro to get their belongings into the warmth as soon as they could. Tyta thought she spotted Dall watching her around midday, but then she looked back and all she saw was a group of men carrying sacks of grain on each shoulder towards a weathered building.

"Tyta?"

Tyta nearly dropped the basket of decidedly frozen eggs she'd just taken from an old woman being ushered inside by her grandson. She turned and saw everyone staring. Cat didn't blend in nearly as well as Tyta did. Tyta had pulled on the furs she'd been given at the Crossing, worn and ratty because gods forbid any of Lord Walder's sons go without for a daughter's sake, and she supposed she looked like just another child carrying things about, even if she had more fur than most of them. But Cat looked every inch the lady she was, and the glossy silver fur on her shoulders looked very warm. Tyta wanted to sink into the snow and vanish. She knew Cat didn't mean it, but every time Tyta saw her she felt so terribly unworthy. Cat was tall and beautiful and proud and ladylike and Tyta- well, she wasn't. She swallowed.

"Cat? What is it?"

Cat seemed to suddenly realize she was being stared at. She cleared her throat. "The guards said you had come here. Would you mind coming with me? I… I have a question for you."

Tyta frowned. This wasn't like Cat. She looked- nervous, almost? That can't be right. Tyta shook her head and passed the basket to the old woman's grandson. "I'm sorry. I have to go."

The grandson nodded, frowning at her. Tyta hoped he wasn't mad for not telling him who she was. She followed Cat in silence, back through the gate into the central courtyard and back into the keep and back into Cat's rooms. Cat dropped her cloak and her furs on her bed. "Tyta… I…"

"Can you spit it out, Cat?" Tyta said. "I promise I won't be mad or offended or anything."

Cat took a deep breath. "How- How did you come to solve the problem between you and…"

"Ned?" Tyta finished, and Cat nodded. They stared at each other for a moment, and then Cat sank onto the bed, looking more miserable than Tyta had ever seen her. Tyta hesitated. "Well, I told him he had no right to treat me the way he'd been treating me on the way here, and then I yelled at him, and then I suppose he had to stew in that for a while and then he came to me and we talked."

Cat only looked more miserable. "But why did that work?"

"Because I told him what the problem was," said Tyta, "And not just that I was mad. I can hear you arguing, Cat. So can everyone else. Just… go and tell him exactly what you think. It couldn't possibly make things worse. And it can't keep going on like this."

"He won't listen. He won't," Cat whispered. "I've been trying. I- I don't know how to try anymore. All he ever does is tell me to stop talking, and then he goes off and does whatever it is he calls his lordly duties and I don't see him until he comes back to argue again."

Tyta couldn't stand it. Cat was one of her only friends here. She might have been a Tully and proud and haughty and sometimes hard to bear, but she was her friend. And seeing someone so proud and haughty looking so sad and helpless was- almost frightening. "Wait here, Cat."

Cat seemed to hear something in Tyta's tone that worried her, because she looked up with a frown. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to go tell Lord Brandon that he's acting like a Frey," said Tyta. Cat's eyes widened. "We're not the same, Cat. You're ladylike and proper and perfect and I'm, well, I'm not. But sometimes my way works better. And you're right, I think. You and your husband have been arguing since you got here. I don't think he can be in the same room as you for more than five minutes before the argument starts again, out of habit."

"I don't want you risking yourself for my sake," said Cat. "Brandon can act rashly when he's angry. He could-"

"-what, try to break off my arrangement with Ned?" Tyta said, and Cat nodded. "Please. I'd like to see him try. He'd not only have to deal with the Crossing – and good luck to the North trying to trade without our bridge – but more importantly, Ned. Besides which, I'm not stupid. I'm going to bring Ned with me. He promised me he'd tell Brandon himself. Now's the time."

Tyta had to stop and ask Vymar Poole where Ned was. She'd checked his rooms and the great hall and the training yards and all his usual haunts without seeing him. Vymar told her to check the stables, and he was right. Ned was talking to the stable master, something about mixing in less oats for winter or something to do with horse feed that went right over Tyta's head. But the stable master saw her and bowed, and Ned turned and raised an eyebrow, and Tyta took a deep breath. Whatever she'd told Cat about not being worried, Tyta could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

"Ned," she said. "I need you to come with me."

Ned frowned, but muttered something to the stable master and followed her back towards the keep. "What is so urgent?"

"Cat's finished," said Tyta. "She can't do this, Ned. You know how hard it is for her to ask for help. She came and asked me, even though I'm younger and from her father's banner lord. You said you'd tell Brandon himself the way he's been acting. We need to do it."

Ned's jaw tightened, but he didn't disagree with her, and he lengthened his stride so much that Tyta barely managed to keep up. They were at the door to Brandon's solar in minutes, and Ned walked through it without so much as a knock. Tyta followed in the wake of his brewing anger wondering if this was a good idea. She'd been counting on Ned to keep his head, but he looked beyond angry now.

"Ned?" Brandon said, laying down a quill.

"Brandon," said Ned, and Tyta slowly closed the door behind her. "Brandon, you are my brother and my lord, but I cannot stand by, not when you are hurting someone you swore to protect."

All at once, Brandon's face grew just as dark, and he opened his mouth to reply when Tyta interrupted. "You treat her like a mistress," she said accusingly. "You keep her in your castle and visit her once a week, you call her a lady but you disrespect her at every turn. Have you even talked to her once since you came here? Without shouting?"

"Watch your betrothed, Ned," Brandon snarled. "She doesn't know how to keep her mouth."

"Because you do?" Ned snapped, and Brandon recoiled. "She's right, even if she isn't as polite about it as Cat might be. All my good-sister wants is a husband to love and honour and a husband to love and honour her in return. You promised that much when you stood at your marriage. Instead of going off hunting and drinking, try talking to Cat for once. What does she like to do? What are her thoughts on things? What insight does she have on the running of your keep? A wife is not a toy, Brandon, she is a person and can be your greatest ally. Father would be ashamed of how you've acted."

Brandon's face was white, now, and Tyta had to wince. Ned was one of the kindest people she knew, but his anger was cutting. She wasn't the one he was mad at and it was still painful to see. "I wish I could be kinder," she told Brandon. "You will be my brother one day. And you're bound to be better than my blood brothers. But right now, you remind me of them. I know you can be more than that. Ned loves you and respects you, and that's enough for me to believe that you are worthy of my love and my respect."

Ned opened the door in silence, and they left quietly. They were halfway across the keep when Ned stopped and let out a heavy sigh. "I've never said anything like that to him before," he said. "I don't think I can do it again."

"Neither do I," said Tyta. "Brandon can be terrifying. I hope it worked. It's not fair on Cat."

"No, it isn't," said Ned. "But the world isn't fair."


	10. The Peace of Winter

**A/N: A slightly shorter chapter than usual, but also perhaps not the most tumultuous. Timeskips will start to accelerate from here on out as we enter a part of the ASOIAF timeline that's somewhat sparsely populated. All aboard the Changes Train - next stop, reconciliation. Enjoy!**

 **Ned**

Brandon sulked for a month. In that, he hadn't changed at all. Ned felt guilty at times, thinking ill of his brother – his _lord_ – but it would be a lie to think that Brandon had changed entirely after his imprisonment. He was colder and cleverer, and his letters to lords the realm across said as much, and that was something, but he was still the wild and tempestuous man Ned knew. And he spent that month snarling at anyone who asked him what was wrong, riding out to hunt or search out wildling raids himself even when everyone encouraged him not to. He avoided Catelyn and Ned and Tyta, and Ned hardly saw him until the month had passed and one day he dropped his wine on his newly-made boots because Cat and Brandon had just walked into the great hall together.

Smiling.

It was a cautious little smile, that was true enough, but compared to the past few months it was like seeing the face of the sun after a grey, dark winter day. Then Cat heard the clatter of Ned's goblet striking upon the floor, and upon turning her head Brandon looked too, and suddenly both were laughing. Ned wondered if he ought to feel offended at being the source of their amusement, because it was very clear they laughed at his wine-covered toes, but then he decided that was foolish of him. If all it took to further mend his brother and good-sister's marriage was some wine slowly seeping down his boots, he would gladly upend a flagon on his feet.

"Ned," said Tyta, coming into the hall, her voice rather confused, "Why do you have wine on your feet?"

"Perhaps he's had too much," suggested Brandon, an impish look in his eye. Cat snickered. Tyta raised her eyebrows.

Ned sighed and failed to restrain a slight smile. "I have had none at all, yet I do not regret the spill. Seeing the two of you so merry does a far sight better towards my mood than Arbour grape."

"There is that," Brandon agreed. He frowned suddenly, thinking. When he spoke again, his words were slow and reluctant. "Ned. I- I had forgotten what it was like to have someone that held me accountable. Without Father… and I did not take you for his place in such. We are brothers, but we spent so much time apart. All that time you fostered with Jon Arryn, I did not know you. Yet I am grateful to the Eyrie, for you are a better man than I, and the more honourable of us both. I am grateful that you are here to tell me frankly when I overstep." He cast a glance at Catelyn, whose laughter had stilled at his serious tone. "I am not a calm man; nor am I always motivated by good. But you have already set me on the better path once, and I would not turn from it again. I dishonoured the name of Stark with how I treated my wife, this I know. I would have you promise to help me from doing any such thing again."

"I will give no such promise," said Ned, and Brandon's eyes shot up to meet his, "Because you need no such words, Brandon. You said the words yourself – _we are brothers_. There is nothing in this world that will ever change that, and I will ever be at your side, whether to agree or to argue. You are not so evil a man that I would be bound to assist by word only. Tempestuous, aye, but then you were raised the heir to Winterfell, and I was not. We are brothers. We stand together always."

Brandon knew what he left unsaid. _Winter is Coming_. Ned's brother nodded and turned his attentions towards breakfast. Ned did so as well, bending to pick up his forgotten goblet only to find it already returned to its place on the table. Tyta caught his eye and smiled, and Ned smiled back. The air seemed lighter, cleared of malcontent and anger. He could only be thankful Brandon had listened. Brandon was right; they had been strangers bound by blood for a while, rarely seen together, but their blood was Stark blood, and that bound them tighter than any words. He would always assist his brother – his lord – with anything he was able to. _The pack survives, and the lone wolf dies_. There was yet trouble brewing in the Seven Kingdoms; restless supporters of dragons and whispers of the Targaryen children escaped to the east. The Starks would stand strong against any new threat. That much, Ned did promise.

 **Tyta**

Stepping from the maester's tower onto spring grass and meltwater mud, Tyta abruptly realised she couldn't remember the last time she had thought about her family. Winter had a strange way of making empty days pass in a blur of business, and somehow all she could remember of the last three years was a cross between boredom and frantic errands, between hours spent idly sewing and days of crazed running when some new snowfall or wildling raid brought chaos to the keep. But truly she hadn't thought at all about the Towers in years. She wondered if it was still as terrible a place as always, and decided it must be for it would be as long as Lord Walder was alive. She wondered how long Bethany Rosby had left, and said a silent prayer that was confused as to life or death being its purpose. She wondered suddenly if Lythene had ever married that fat rich Southern lord she had wanted so badly.

Tyta's feet made loud squelching sounds as she pulled them free of the muck, heading back for the keep. Cat was no doubt waiting on her, trying valiantly to keep Jon and her little son Robbard to a single room as they explored the use of their legs. Jon was the elder by a year, but little Robb gave no mind, determinedly trundling after the older child and inevitably landing both of them in some new scrape or injury. Now that the snows had finally melted, the boys were impatient to explore the world outside, like kittens seeking the details of the world for the first time.

Tyta was certain the moment they were let out the chaos would not end for weeks. _They have more energy than year-old colts._ The boys were exhausting, even with Cat and Tyta working together. Tyta restrained a small smile as she passed into the keep. Exhausting, but loveable. She would cherish the memory of Jon proudly presenting both Cat and Tyta with spring snowflowers no doubt gathered by a guard, with Robb standing by with yet more of them. They were sweet boys.

It was a much better thing to think about than the Crossing, she decided. The only thing she was grateful to her father for, the only thing he had ever done that she appreciated, was the day he decided to be his usual cantakerous self and stop the army of the North on its way home. She stilled missed Morya, and Bethany in that strange pitying way, but they were vague wisps in her memory. Her mind was filled with newer, brighter faces, the faces of Cat and Ned and Brandon and Benjen too, even though she had hardly met Benjen before the youngest Stark brother had left for the Wall.

Tyta wondered if that made her a terrible person, to have forgotten her family so easily. _Not so loyal, after all. Just like a Frey_. It was a strange thought. No one in the Crossing was loyal to anyone but themselves, all those hundreds of cousins and aunts and uncles and fathers and mothers and siblings crammed together into that castle, all of them circling Lord Walder and trying to fight their way closer. Winterfell had been a jarring shock, yes, not lessened in the least by Brandon's stormy character or the rocky beginnings of his marriage with Cat, but it was calmer still. Safer. Tyta trusted its people like she had never trusted those of the Crossing, and that was worth more than she could ever put into words.

Besides, she decided, her family was here now. It was only a matter of time before it was formally so, anyway – she was fifteen now, and surely if the wait was much longer it wouldn't just be Lord Walder eyeing them suspiciously. Some small part of her thought she ought to be quite a lot more excited, but that part of her was small indeed. It wouldn't change all that much, she reasoned. _I already live in Winterfell, I already know those who will be my family, I already do much of the same tasks – what could change so much?_ Her mind was filled with Lythene's giggling suddenly, whispers emerging from memory of Lythene recounting wild deeds in hidden alcoves, and even though she was doing nothing save walking through a corridor Tyta blushed. She know _of_ it, vaguely, but little save uncertain hearsay and a septa's admonishments on wifely duties.

Tyta shook her head and determinedly cast the troublesome thoughts out of her mind. It was all something she would deal with later. Now she had something rather less disconcerting to think about – namely, the fact that Cat had opened the door ahead of her, and Jon and Robb were already tearing down the corridor. Tyta met Cat's eyes for a moment. Both turned and sped off after the boys. Gods, but they moved fast.

Just, Tyta reflected, like time.


	11. The Stirrings of Spring

**Brandon**

Brandon swore, as loudly and creatively as he could manage. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm himself as he examined the missive the maester had brought him from the rookery. It had been sealed with golden wax, pressed with a crowned stag, and Brandon had instantly known it would not been good news – kings never bothered their liegemen until they had need of them, not even friendly kings that loved their liegeman's brother like their own blood. _Could this have come at a worse time?_ Brandon didn't think so. He let out a long breath. The ironmen had been plaguing his western shores, that much he recalled, but little mind was paid to them – a longship here, a longship there, and most of the time the bastards landed amidst empty forests, marked only by woodsmen who carried reports to him. There were hardly any settlements for them to raid, and those that were there were long accustomed to reavers and pushed them back into the sea beaten and wary of returning. He hadn't paid it much mind, save to send a courier or a raven down to King's Landing. Brandon had had the thought to not even bother doing that, but he reasoned the king of the land ought to know about his lords attacking each other. I wanted to deal with it personally. _Gods, I'm an idiot._

"Brandon?" said Ned, entering the solar, his eyebrows high. "Would you care to explain why one of the guards fetched me, saying you were cursing fit to sail the seas?" Then he caught sight of Brandon's face, and the mirth vanished. "What is it, Brandon?"

"War," said Brandon darkly, setting the parchment down where Ned could read it. "The ironmen have crawled off their saltstained rocks and attacked Crakehall. Lord Roland beat them off, but they killed a third of his people and stole most of the rest. Every lord with a coast has reported them scouting the coastlines, from the Redwynes to the Mormonts. Your foster-brother king calls us all to war."

Ned paused- and then swore just as colourfully as Brandon had. "Now?" he said, and Brandon nodded. "Well, you will hardly go, Bran. I will."

Brandon frowned. "Ned, I must. I am the Lord Paramount of the North, and the King summons Winterfell. I cannot simply ignore his call because my wife is with child."

"You can and you will," said Ned. "Catelyn deserves to have you with her, and in any case, I doubt Robert will mind it overmuch if he gets the second son of Winterfell instead. You are the Lord of Winterfell, but I am his foster-brother, and if he cares not that you are absent no one will dare say a word against it."

Brandon's frown was still on his face. He disliked the idea of sending Ned in his place. He knew Ned would do the Stark name proud, aye, but it seemed cowardly for a man to send his younger brother in his place. _Ned needs no protection, but how can I face being the lord who sent someone else in his place, forsaking war for the comfort of his keep? I am not that sort of man_. Brandon sighed again, his face in his hands. "Ned, you know I cannot ask it of you. You have duties here as well, as many as I. Think you Tyta would so readily forgive me for sending her husband off to war, and staying here myself? Your Artos needs you just as much as Robb does me."

"I sincerely doubt Tyta would harangue you overmuch for sending me away," said Ned wryly. "Most like she will simply demand to take a horse and ride aside me. Or barring that take a horse and do it just the same. It is far easier to anticipate it and saddle a horse for her and Artos."

"What?"

"Brandon, you know her well enough, surely," Ned replied, amused at his brother's startled exclamation. "I suppose between the both of us we shall manage to convince her not to hide away in the camps, but at the very least she will most like end up somewhere in the South. What she will do for Artos and Ella, I hardly know, but I made my bed when I chose a spitfire."

"Gods, Ned, and sometimes I think Cat is wild," Brandon said, shaking his head. "At least she knows when to listen. Well, I will let you work that out between yourselves, for I have no care to meddle in it."

 **Robert**

 _Finally, a fight, and friends at my sides_. The King of the Seven Kingdoms watched the column of riders pouring into the Red Keep, a river of armoured silver cloaked with grey and bearing shields beaten with direwolves. The white and grey banners were snapping in the sea wind that was blowing across the courtyard, making the snarling wolves dance. They were the wolves of Winterfell, but even had Robert not known that it was Ned who came with the army of the North he would have known it from the banners. The men about their lord bore banners with two small direwolves each, the personal sigil of the Young Wolf and second son of Winterfell. Robert smiled as the man in the midst of the banners caught his eye and raised a hand in greeting. Ned looked older, aye, and he'd grown a beard Robert hadn't seen him wear before, but he'd know Ned in his sleep.

"Ned!" Robert shouted, advancing and ignoring the startled and concerned looks of the courtiers about him at this breaking of proper procedure. Ned dismounted barely in time for Robert to clap him about the shoulders. "Thank the Seven you have come! I've about had it with the vipers around here. It will be good to have someone to speak true around for once."

"Robert," said Ned, smiling a little. He carefully extricated himself from Robert's grasp, somehow managing to bow at the lords and ladies that had hurriedly advanced following the King's rush forward. "My Queen." The golden-haired woman smiled a little grimace of a smile, her lips pressed together so hard they were white with dislike. Robert scowled a little, only to notice Ned hadn't come alone either.

"Ned?" he said, his brow furrowing. "You do realize we're going to war?"

"Certainly," Ned replied, seeming to know what he was asking. He half-turned to the woman who had dismounted (from a rather bad-tempered looking horse, Robert noticed), bringing her forward on his arm. "Robert, this is my wife, Tyta. She made it quite clear that if the King was going to call her husband away from home he ought to be prepared to host her as well."

Robert watched as the red-haired woman curtsied. "Your Grace," she said, and smiled a saucy little smirk that made Robert smile back without a care for the whispers of outrage coming from behind him. He extended a hand and pulled her up, examining her more carefully. _How anything like this came from Walder Frey's poxy seed, only the Seven will ever know._ Ned's wife had more spirit in her than all of Cersei's ladies combined, and then some. Robert wondered what that said for the future.

"Well," he said, "I suppose I must, since I'm the reason it's Ned coming and not his brother. Welcome to King's Landing, Tyta. I hope it will be to your liking, although if you are anything like Ned, I doubt it. You shall just have to content yourself with your husband's foster-brother." He decided he quite liked Ned's wife when she replied, following all the politenesses expected and yet making it quite clear what sort of woman she was. Robert considered the pair for a moment, noting the babe held by a nurse and the young boy being carefully removed from the saddle by a guard. Ned had brought his family with him.

 _Seven hells. Now I'm jealous of Ned._ There had to be some kind of rule against the King of the Seven Kingdoms being jealous of the second son of the North. Wasn't there? _Probably in the same rule book as the one about not rebelling against your king._ Robert shook the thought out of his head as he turned to lead Ned and his wife into the Keep, barely paying any mind to where Cersei was standing and glaring. If he had any luck, Cersei would turn her viper's tongue to Tyta instead of Ned. Something told Robert the daughter of Walder Frey would be able to handle it better than his old friend. That was certainly a sight Robert was looking forward to.

He aways did like war more than peace.

 **Cersei**

 _Tyta Stark is a vicious, wild bitch._

There, she had said it, in the privacy of her mind. Cersei hated that she had to hold her tongue like this, hated that the Queen of Westeros was bound to being a soft-spoken little damsel to look pretty on the King's arm. Once, that had been all she had dreamed of. But it wasn't at all like she had thought, not hardly. No, between her and her husband there was only virulent dislike and disgust, and she knew he loved Ned Stark more than he would love her. _That man is a problem_. And he truly was - Ned Stark held Robert's ear, and she might not have feared it nearly so much if he hadn't had that cunning bitch at his side. Stark was an idiot, rigidly honourable and generally oblivious to the plots that played around him and Robert and all that he was supposed to be. _Not surprising. The man is but a second son, and Brandon Stark is safe in his frozen castle, keeping the North safe for his King, of course._ Brandon Stark's absence had been the topic of much gossip for the first few days, but eventually his younger brother's arrival in his place had been relegated to an attempt to please Robert, and Seven knew it had worked.

But it certainly wasn't Ned Stark that concerned her now. No, it was Tyta. Tyta Frey-now-Stark, born to a conniving weak-chinned lord who by all accounts was as foul as any and simply refused to die, marrying again and again and spawning a castle full of conniving little brats. Tyta among them. Oh, the red-haired woman smiled and curtsied and spoke as if she had been raised in King's Landing - _and where she learned that, I wish I knew_ \- but Cersei could tell there was more than a simpering idiot behind her pretty little face.

Cersei would have to keep an eye on the woman. She had Robert's favour, impudent tart that she was, and that made her a redoubtable enemy. One Cersei was determined not to let gain any more favour than she currently held. _There has to be a way to discredit the Starks. Robert cannot think they are so very perfect._ Cersei would find a way. She always did.


	12. The Coming of the Tide

**Tyta**

Tyta was glad she had ridden south with Ned. Well, she certainly was _not_ enjoying her time in the capital, and she would much rather be in the North where at the very least she could trust a greeting called in passing to not be some kind of veiled play for power, but still, it was good she had come. Her honourable lord of a husband would have fared ill in this nest of vipers, and rather worse when Tyta considered that the chief among them stood clad in red at Robert's other side. _Cersei is plotting something_. Tyta did not know what it was, but she knew she had to watch for it. Cersei, she told herself, was just the same as the other girls of the Crossing – mean, vicious, always seeking to tear down others. _I must be ready._

"No, Artos," she said absently as Artos tried to climb halfway up a cupboard to retrieve some bauble of a toy that Ella had been seemingly trying to reach from where her bottom was solidly planted on the floor. Tyta got to her feet and pulled the toy down for the two, wondering how Jon was faring so far away. She had wanted to bring him, Seven knew she did, but…

 _Jon._

There it was. That was Cersei's plot, Tyta was certain. She knew she was pushing the court's sense of propriety riding south, and with Artos and Ella at that, and that was why she had not brought Jon with her, even though as far as she cared Jon was as much hers as Artos and it hurt to not have him with her. But Cersei's machinations had something to do with Ned's bastard, that much Tyta was certain. A small smirk flitted across her face. Perhaps she would try to put a wedge between her and Ned, or treat the court to the spectacle of the Starks arguing – no doubt all in good intention of honesty and fairness to Lady Stark. _Ignorant little lion_. Tyta almost looked forward to it.

"Ned," she said as her husband entered the room, shrugging his brocaded tunic from his shoulders before the door had quite closed. Tyta rose to take it from him, seeing the sheen of sweat on his brow. "Seven, Ned, whatever is the matter?"

"I don't know how Robert lives here," said Ned, sitting down with the air of a man who had not slept in days. "Vipers, all of them – foul, of a mind only for ill. Lord- what is his name- it must have been one of the Lannisport Lannisters, he had not the curled hair – he pestered me for half the day about ships and defending ports from the ironmen, all the while knowing the North has no fleet, only to turn on me and make some crude jape about wolves and squids."

"I suspect the King asks himself much the same question, and I doubt he quite knows how to live here, either" said Tyta. "I am sure you acquitted yourself well, Ned. This is not your sort of battle. The problem is they all know it just as well as we do."

Ned blew out a long breath. "What do you suggest? I can hardly continue as I have done. Brandon will be made a farce at this rate." A small smile came to his face as Artos toddled over, raising his arms, and Tyta had to smile in turn as Ned picked the boy up with a happy look that took all the weariness away in a heartbeat.

"I have a plan," said Tyta. "Cersei has been plotting, and I am fairly sure it will be to discredit us somehow using knowledge of Jon as a point of attack. You do best when you prepare, so let us prepare for it."

It was only a matter of days before Cersei put her plan into action. Tyta and Ned found themselves in the midst of a pack of lords and ladies of the court – and some Tyta rather thought Cersei might have summoned for the express purpose of humiliation – when Cersei, very loftily, asked Ned where his _other_ son was and inquired as to the bastard's welfare. All very politely, of course, and in a casually curious sort of voice, but Tyta knew the daggers lying in wait, and so did Ned.

"Jon?" said Ned, his voice a perfect picture of polite, confused surprise. "What of him?"

"So you do have a bastard," said Cersei almost gleefully. Ned raised his eyebrows.

"Aye," he said. "He is at Winterfell, no doubt playing with Robb, my brother's heir. He will make a good sword for my nephew, and I am proud of the boy. We do not abandon our children, where I come from. I did not bring him at Brandon's request. The Lord Paramount did not want to separate his heir from his greatest friend. Boys at that age must have playmates."

"What kind of company our King keeps," said Cersei, to the muttering of the crowd. "A man who so rejoices in his baseborn son, with a wife who hardly knows the meaning of propriety! A poison upon on the King's conscience!"

"Do forgive me, Your Grace," said Ned very politely, as if he had not heard the insult. "But I was foster-brother to His Grace before you were wed, and he had already had a bastard child of his own – a little girl, Mya Stone-" – an explosion of whispers like angry bees –"-and I do believe he had at least one more I did not meet. I certainly have no part in our King's conscience, save that which he gives me. If you think me such a danger to His Grace, I would suggest you speak to him about it, not me. I do all at His Grace's command." Then Ned pushed his shoulders back, his face darkening to a grim countenance. "And I would thank Your Grace to keep from uttering such insults to my wife's name. Lady Tyta has given me two children in as many years, and has never been aught but the best wife I could ever have dreamed of. I cannot countenance insult to her person."

That shut Cersei up, because Ned had responded precisely as she would have – a polite reminder to a political opponent and spectators that Ned had been close to the King for years longer than they had been, then rebutting his opponent's slander by reminding the crowd that Tyta had done everything any lord might wish for his wife to do. Tyta's smile was tight, but it was a true one when she caught Cersei's eye and raised an eyebrow at the fuming Queen. Let her try again. Tyta was ready to handle any politicking Cersei might attempt to come up with.

And it might be to Tyta's benefit to spread a few rumours she had heard here and there. They were horrifically improper and unpleasant, but all the better to discredit Cersei. The blonde woman was a foul thing, and thought herself a powerful lioness. Tyta rather thought it was time to pull the lionness's claws. _No one hurts Ned._

 **Cersei**

Her heart was pounding in her chest. It was impossibly hard to keep her face calm, but somehow, somehow, she just ever so barely managed, staring flinty-eyed at the impudent little chit that had dared to speak up. The girl – a Fossoway, maybe, not that Cersei really cared – let out a quiet _meep_ and vanished into the court, but Cersei knew it wasn't enough as she turned away. _Not when it's been said. How can they know? How do they know? What if-_ Her hands were clenched so tightly she could feel her nails drawing blood.

Her babies. Jaime. Robert would kill them all, she knew he would. She had to stop the rumours, stop them at once. But how? _Who had told the court?_

And that was when she realized, and a cold hand clutched her insides, as cold and icy as the face of Tyta Stark from where that bitch was standing exchanging pleasantries with Robert. _I know you know_ , said the wolf bitch's eyes. Cersei understood the threat.

 _And I will return it._

 **Tyta**

It was quiet for weeks. Or perhaps more correctly, _Cersei_ was quiet for weeks. Tyta knew the woman was plotting again; she could hardly _not_ be, not after Tyta had made certain Barbrey Dustin loudly talked to her maid about how utterly, revoltingly perverted the southern court was. Barbrey was a hard woman – and Tyta didn't think she would ever forgive Ned for not bringing back her husband – but despite all that, they were, if not friends, at the very least allies. Tyta knew it strained at the court's sensibilities to have her come south in the first place, so at the very least she had made certain she was not the only lady from the North here. Barbrey had been the only choice, the only lady who did not have a husband to keep her home or children to worry for. It had been a long and ugly silence all the way down the Neck, but eventually they had started talking. _She is hard, but I can work with that_. And Tyta knew it was a good thing. Barbrey had been delighted to start the rumours.

In any case, Ned had left not long after the rumours had begun to spread, along with the King and all his commanders and soldiers and knights. The Greyjoys had been making dangerous inroads, and none of the lords had any patience for it. _Cersei_ , thought Tyta, _will not fight me, not when our houses fight the ironmen together._ If there was one single person besides herself – and perhaps her brother – that Cersei respected even a little, it was Tywin Lannister. She would know better than to start a court war with the Starks while lions and direwolves fought side by side. And Tyta had no interest in being in King's Landing for a single day beyond the end of the war. Cersei could rail against them all she wanted while they were safe, at home.

Tyta refused to consider that the war might go otherwise. She simply refused.

The news supported her refusal. First a raven to say that the combined forces under King Robert had pushed the Greyjoys further and further back, another declaring a siege of Pyke, and at last, after a harrowing fortnight, Balon Greyjoy's capitulation was sent to court in a triumphant procession of black-winged birds sent ahead of the returning armies. _Ned is coming home_. That meant soon they would leave this stinking, festering capital, and Artos and Ella and all the others would be together and safe again. Tyta thought back to the day, so long ago it seemed now, that direwolves had come to the Twins. She would never forget it, not if she lived to see the end of time. It had been the most frightening day of her life, the day she had thought her big mouth had finally brought home the repercussions her family had always promised the girl that never listened. But it was also the day everything changed, the day she was set on a path to learning what it meant to have more than one real friend, to love, to finally learn that not all brothers were horrid men (even if Brandon did ever have a temper.) It was the day that set her on a road to her new home, a home that was more her home than the Crossing had ever been.

 _I will never regret telling Lythene to stop._

Tyta raised her head. She was standing in the courtyard of the Red Keep now, thinking back to that day; Ella and Artos were beside her, fidgeting in their silks. Artos had a smudge of dirt on his brow. Ella had muddied hands. Tyta couldn't quite find it within her to care then, even if certainly Artos should have known better than to be playing at mud-cakes with Ella just then. She shifted Ella in her arms as the first thunder of hooves became audible, a low rumbling as the armies gathered about the city and their commanders rode to the Keep. The horns greeted them, high and victorious, and Tyta smiled to see Ned beside the King as they rode in. He looked tired, but hale. That was all that mattered, even if she could see a new scar peeking from his collar and even if she was certain there were more she could not see then. Ned was alive, and well, and they could go _home-_

"Mama," said Ella, "Who dat?"

 _Who is that indeed,_ Tyta thought blankly as Ned dismounted and pulled a boy from his saddle. The boy couldn't have been more than eight, nine perhaps, pale-faced and decidedly tear-stained. Ned led him forward as the King swept by his courtiers, ignoring his Queen and all the others. Tyta said nothing, waiting for Ned to explain. He certainly had quite a lot to explain at that

"This is Theon," said Ned as conversation and shouting filled the courtyard, wincing when the boy flinched at being brought forward. "Balon Greyjoy's only remaining son. Robert asked that I take him as my ward, Tyta. He wouldn't hear of any other answer."

"We'll discuss this later, Ned," said Tyta, eyeing the pale child. "In the meantime, this boy is frightened and probably utterly bewildered at what is happening to him and his family. He needs a solid meal and sleep before he collapses." She put her hand forward. "Come along, Theon. I don't suppose you like barley stew?"

"Not really," said the boy very quietly. His eyes were fixed firmly on the flagstones, matted hair falling over his forehead to hide his face.

"Neither do I," Tyta assured. She waited until he looked up to wink. "But I think there are some sugar cakes to be had right after." Theon Greyjoy was a child. And hungry children quite definitely liked cakes. Theon was no exception, eyes lighting up just a little bit. He hesitantly took Tyta's hand. "Let's go get us some not-so-good barley stew and we can wash it down with sugar cakes and sweets, shall we?"

Ned spent hours that day – with the King, she assumed, and his Hand, discussing the end of the war and all the rest – before returning to speak with her when the stars had already emerged and the sun was long gone. "-the boy?"

"He's quite asleep," said Tyta. "Honestly, Ned. The boy has just lost his brothers, his father, and his home, and I doubt anyone told him much of why. You might have tried to calm him down a little before he worked himself up like this. To him you're no different from the other warriors that broke into his little world and tore it apart."

"Am I different?" Ned replied quietly, his eyes fixed on the boy.

"You shall have to be," Tyta said. "He is a boy. Certainly his father thought himself stronger than he is, and the consequences of that shall remain with Theon Greyjoy for the rest of his life. He must know that even if his father is lost to him that he has a home, that he has, if not a father, then a man who does just as well. This is hardly the same as Jon, Ned, but as far as I am concerned it must be no different." She smiled. "What is one more boy to run around Winterfell, Ned? I think you will do well enough. Think on how you would hope Artos would be treated in Theon's place, and go from there. Now, I can see you need your bed just as badly as the boy. It's time to rest."


End file.
